E.M. Wallis | Updates

Five things that make a supernatural mystery unforgettable

E.M. Wallis — Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What makes a supernatural mystery linger in your imagination long after you've turned the final page? Author E.M. Wallis explores five essential ingredients, from believable characters and atmospheric settings to the secrets that refuse to stay buried.

Why some stories stay with us

I can remember finishing books years ago and still being able to picture a particular scene, a character or a place. Sometimes I can't recall every detail of the plot, but the feeling the story created remains remarkably clear.

That's something I've always found fascinating about fiction.

A good mystery keeps you reading because you want to know what happens next. A particularly good one stays with you because of what it makes you think about afterwards.

Supernatural mysteries have an additional advantage. They can take something familiar, introduce an element that appears impossible and leave us questioning whether the world is quite as predictable as we like to believe.

A telephone rings in an empty house. Someone glimpses a familiar face in a crowd, despite knowing that person died years earlier. A photograph contains a figure nobody remembers being there.

Each incident could have a perfectly reasonable explanation.

But what if it doesn't?

As a writer of supernatural mysteries, I'm interested in that moment when certainty begins to disappear. I enjoy creating situations where characters must question what they've experienced, while readers try to decide which explanation they believe.

But an unusual event alone isn't enough to make a story memorable. It needs something more substantial beneath it, something that gives the mystery meaning and makes the reader care about the outcome.

For me, five ingredients make the greatest difference.

Looking for your next supernatural mystery?

If you enjoy stories where the unexplained collides with ordinary lives, you might like my novels Whispers in the Fog and The Last Caller, or my shorter supernatural mystery GHOSTED.

From disturbing psychic visions on an isolated island to an impossible telephone call from someone who should be dead, each explores the secrets, relationships and unexpected events that make supernatural mysteries so compelling.

You can discover all three on Amazon:

Whispers in the Fog | The Last Caller | GHOSTED

But what makes a supernatural mystery genuinely unforgettable? Here are the five ingredients I believe matter most.

1. A mystery that raises questions worth answering

Every memorable supernatural mystery begins with something that doesn't quite make sense.

It might be a disappearance, an unexplained death or an event that seems to contradict everything we understand about the world. Whatever happens, it needs to create a question compelling enough to make the reader want to investigate.

The important thing is that the mystery should develop rather than simply become more complicated.

I've read stories where strange events occur one after another, but there's little sense that they're connected. The result can be unsettling, certainly, but without a central question driving the narrative, the reader may eventually lose interest.

I prefer mysteries where each discovery changes our understanding of what happened before.

A character uncovers an old photograph, for example, and recognises someone who shouldn't be there. That leads to a name, the name leads to an event from the past and suddenly an apparently supernatural occurrence becomes connected to something much more personal.

The reader begins forming theories, testing explanations and looking for details that might have been overlooked.

That's where the pleasure of a mystery lies.

In my novel The Last Caller, Jacob works for a bereavement support service when he receives a telephone call from a woman who should be dead.

The impossible conversation creates the initial question, but it also begins an investigation involving a devastating fire, concealed family relationships and secrets surrounding Jacob's own past.

I wanted the mystery to develop beyond the identity of the caller. The more Jacob discovers, the more he has to reconsider what he believes about the people closest to him.

For me, that's an important part of making a supernatural mystery work. The unexplained event should open the door to a much larger story.

And sometimes, the answers should be more disturbing than the original question.

2. Characters we genuinely care about

A ghost can be frightening. A mysterious disappearance can be intriguing. But neither will necessarily stay with a reader unless the events matter to someone.

Characters give a mystery its emotional weight.

I think one of the most common mistakes in supernatural fiction is concentrating so heavily on the extraordinary events that the people experiencing them become secondary.

They're there to witness something frightening, investigate a strange occurrence or uncover a secret, but we never really understand who they are beyond their role in the plot.

For me, the most effective supernatural mysteries work the other way around. The extraordinary event interrupts a recognisable human life, creating problems that affect relationships, ambitions, memories and beliefs.

Imagine two characters receiving an impossible message from someone who has died.

One might be terrified because they believed they'd finally escaped an abusive relationship. Another might be overwhelmed with hope because they never had the opportunity to say goodbye to someone they loved.

The supernatural event is identical, but its emotional significance is entirely different.

That difference is what makes characters interesting.

In Whispers in the Fog, Lillie's psychic visions draw her into a murder mystery on the isolated Misthaven Island.

Her experiences suggest that something important is hidden beneath the surface, but understanding the visions is only part of her problem. As suspicion begins to fall upon her, the consequences become increasingly personal.

I wanted readers to understand that possessing unusual knowledge doesn't necessarily make someone powerful.

Sometimes it makes them vulnerable.

Lillie has to navigate a situation where what she knows, what she believes and what other people are prepared to accept may be very different things.

That creates tension beyond the supernatural element itself.

Because when readers care about a character, they don't simply want the mystery solved. They want to know what solving it will cost.

3. A setting that becomes part of the story

I've always believed that the places we choose for our stories matter enormously.

An abandoned mansion might seem an obvious location for a ghost story, but an ordinary terraced house, a quiet village or a familiar workplace can be just as effective.

Sometimes more so.

The reason is simple. We tend to feel comfortable in places we recognise, particularly those associated with everyday routines. Introduce something inexplicable into that environment, and the contrast can be deeply unsettling.

A strange noise in a supposedly haunted castle is almost expected. The same noise coming from your own kitchen at three in the morning is rather more difficult to dismiss.

But setting should do more than create atmosphere.

It can influence the characters' decisions, shape their relationships and determine how the mystery unfolds.

When I created Misthaven Island for Whispers in the Fog, I wanted somewhere that felt like a real community, with its own history, relationships and secrets.

An island offers physical isolation, but the psychological isolation interests me just as much. People may have known one another for years, yet that familiarity doesn't necessarily mean they understand one another.

Someone might have spent decades concealing an uncomfortable truth. Another might have accepted a version of events that turns out to be completely wrong.

And when a murder mystery begins to unfold, those relationships can become particularly important.

The fog adds another dimension, changing the appearance of familiar places and making distances, sounds and movements difficult to judge.

But I didn't want it to become merely a convenient way of making everything look mysterious.

The setting needed to influence the story itself.

I explored this in more detail in my article, When ordinary places become extraordinary: The importance of setting in supernatural fiction.

Read the article

I've also written about the development of Misthaven Island in Behind the Fog: Creating the World of Misthaven Island, exploring how its isolation, community and atmosphere contribute to the mystery.

For me, the most memorable fictional settings are those readers can imagine visiting.

Although they might think twice about staying after dark.

4. Uncertainty that allows the imagination to work

One of the most powerful tools available to a supernatural mystery writer is uncertainty.

I don't mean deliberately confusing the reader or withholding information simply to make the story difficult to follow. I'm talking about the uncertainty that arises when something happens and nobody, including the reader, can be entirely sure what it means.

Is the strange figure at the window a ghost?

Could someone be playing a cruel trick?

Is a character remembering an event accurately, or have their experiences influenced what they believe they saw?

Those questions encourage readers to participate in the story rather than simply observe it.

Our imaginations are remarkably good at filling in missing information. A shadow becomes a figure, a sound becomes a whisper and an unexpected movement becomes evidence that someone else is present.

Most of the time, there's a perfectly ordinary explanation.

But fiction allows us to explore what happens when there isn't.

I think this is one reason supernatural mysteries can be more unsettling than stories that reveal their threats immediately.

Once readers know exactly what they're dealing with, they begin to understand its limitations. While something remains unexplained, almost anything seems possible.

That doesn't mean a writer should avoid providing answers.

A mystery needs to deliver on the questions it raises, particularly when readers have invested time trying to solve it. But there's a difference between resolving the central story and explaining away every last trace of uncertainty.

Sometimes a small unanswered question can be more effective than an elaborate explanation.

Perhaps a character discovers the truth behind a haunting, only to encounter one final detail that doesn't fit.

Perhaps an apparently rational explanation accounts for almost everything, but not quite.

The reader closes the book, considers what happened and begins wondering whether the story has another interpretation.

That's a wonderful outcome for a writer.

I explored the way uncertainty influences our reactions in my earlier article, The psychology of fear: Why the unseen frightens us most.

The imagination can be a far more effective source of tension than anything described explicitly on the page.

And occasionally, what we don't see matters most.

5. A truth that changes everything

For me, the final ingredient is perhaps the most important.

A memorable supernatural mystery needs a revelation that matters.

That doesn't necessarily mean a spectacular twist, a shocking death or an ending designed to make readers gasp. Those things can work, but only when they grow naturally from the story.

I'm more interested in revelations that change our understanding of the characters and their circumstances.

A secret from the past might explain why someone has behaved strangely for years. A seemingly insignificant decision might turn out to have devastating consequences. A character might discover that the person they trusted most has concealed something that changes everything they believed about their life.

The supernatural can provide the means of uncovering that truth, but the consequences are often entirely human.

That's what fascinates me about combining supernatural fiction with mystery.

A ghost might be frightening, but discovering why someone has returned can be far more unsettling.

In The Last Caller, the impossible telephone call leads Jacob towards events and relationships that challenge his understanding of his own history. The supernatural provides the initial mystery, but the emotional consequences of what he discovers are just as important.

Similarly, in Whispers in the Fog, Lillie's visions draw her towards a murder investigation in which suspicion, trust and concealed information become central to the unfolding story.

I enjoy writing mysteries where readers can look back after the final revelation and recognise that the clues were there all along.

Perhaps they interpreted something incorrectly. Perhaps a character's apparently innocent remark carried more significance than anyone realised.

The best revelations don't simply surprise us.

They make us reconsider what we've already read.

And when that happens, a story can remain in the imagination long after its final page.

Bringing the five ingredients together

Of course, these elements don't work independently.

A compelling mystery needs believable characters, because the answers must matter to someone. Those characters need a convincing world to inhabit, while the setting can create opportunities for tension and uncertainty.

The unexplained events draw readers into the story, but the emotional consequences give them a reason to stay.

And the final revelation needs to bring those threads together in a way that feels satisfying.

That's the challenge I enjoy most when writing supernatural fiction.

It's relatively easy to imagine something strange happening. A telephone call from someone who has died, a disturbing vision or an unexplained figure appearing in a photograph can all provide intriguing starting points.

Turning that idea into a story that readers care about is another matter.

It requires decisions about character, motivation, atmosphere, pacing and how much information to reveal.

Sometimes the smallest detail can make the greatest difference.

A character hesitates before answering a question. Someone notices an object that has moved. A familiar name appears in an unexpected place.

At first, the incident seems unimportant.

Later, it might change everything.

What writing GHOSTED taught me about suspense

Writing shorter fiction has made me think carefully about how these ingredients work together.

In a novel, there's room to develop relationships, explore a setting and gradually reveal the connections between seemingly unrelated events.

A short story doesn't offer the same luxury.

When I wrote GHOSTED, I wanted to create an atmospheric supernatural mystery that readers could enjoy in a single sitting.

That meant being selective about what mattered most.

You don't need to explain every aspect of a character's past to make them believable, just as you don't need pages of description to establish an unsettling atmosphere.

Sometimes a single observation, an unexpected reaction or a carefully placed detail can achieve more than an elaborate explanation.

The challenge is knowing what to include and what to leave to the reader's imagination.

I think that's a useful lesson for novelists as well as short-story writers.

Every scene should contribute something, whether it's developing a character, advancing the mystery or changing the reader's understanding of what's happening.

And if a scene does several of those things at once, so much the better.

You can read more about the inspiration behind the story in GHOSTED: The story behind my supernatural mystery.

Discover my supernatural mysteries

If you enjoy stories that combine unexplained events with human secrets, psychological tension and mysteries that gradually reveal their connections to the past, you might like to explore my fiction.

Whispers in the Fog

On the isolated Misthaven Island, Lillie's disturbing psychic visions draw her into a murder mystery where concealed secrets and growing suspicion place her in danger.

Read Whispers in the Fog on Amazon

The Last Caller

A bereavement support worker receives an impossible telephone call from a woman who should be dead, leading him towards a devastating fire, concealed family relationships and disturbing truths about his own past.

Read The Last Caller on Amazon

GHOSTED

An atmospheric supernatural mystery short story exploring the unsettling space between ordinary life and the unexplained.

Read GHOSTED on Amazon

You can also find more articles about writing, supernatural fiction and the inspiration behind my stories on my author website.

One final thought

Think about the last supernatural mystery that really stayed with you.

Was it the ghost, the setting or the unexplained event that made it memorable? Perhaps there was a revelation you never saw coming, or a character whose experiences felt uncomfortably familiar.

I suspect that, more often than not, it was a combination of things.

A mystery that made you curious, characters you cared about and an atmosphere that encouraged your imagination to explore possibilities the author hadn't explicitly described.

And somewhere beneath it all, a truth waiting to be discovered.

That's what I try to create when I write supernatural mysteries. Not simply a collection of frightening events, but stories where the extraordinary reveals something meaningful about ordinary human lives.

Because a ghost might make you turn the page.

But it's the story behind the haunting that makes you remember it.

And perhaps that's the real secret of an unforgettable supernatural mystery.

E.M. Wallis

Author of Whispers in the Fog, The Last Caller and GHOSTED

Visit the E.M. Wallis author website

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Behind the Fog: Creating the World of Misthaven Island

E.M. Wallis — Fri, 6 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An isolated island, a young woman troubled by psychic visions and a murder mystery where nothing is quite as it seems. Author E.M. Wallis explores the thinking behind Misthaven Island, the atmospheric setting of his supernatural mystery novel, Whispers in the Fog.

An island with secrets

There's something about an island that appeals to the imagination. Perhaps it's the isolation, knowing that the mainland is somewhere beyond the horizon but reaching it isn't always straightforward or perhaps it's the sense of a community living within its own boundaries, where people have known one another for years and the past is never quite as distant as it seems.

I've always found coastal landscapes fascinating. On a bright summer afternoon, they can be beautiful, welcoming places.

But change the weather, bring in the mist and allow the light to fade, and that same stretch of coastline becomes something entirely different. Distances become difficult to judge, buildings disappear into the fog and sounds carry across the water without revealing where they came from.

Somewhere beyond the mist, something might be waiting.

When I developed Whispers in the Fog, I wanted a setting that could create this sense of uncertainty without relying on the supernatural at every turn. Misthaven Island gave me that opportunity, but it needed to become more than an atmospheric backdrop.

I wanted somewhere people could imagine living, with its own history and secrets that might be better left undisturbed. Most importantly, it had to be a place where the mystery could unfold naturally, with the island itself influencing what happened to the people staying there.

Why an island?

One of the challenges of writing a mystery is finding believable ways to create tension. Characters need reasons to become involved in events, obstacles to overcome and, occasionally, circumstances that make walking away rather more difficult than it sounds.

An island provides some of those possibilities almost automatically.

There's a physical separation from the outside world, even if that distance is relatively small. People can't necessarily come and go whenever they please, weather can interfere with travel and information might circulate within the community long before it reaches anyone elsewhere.

But the psychological isolation interests me even more. In a small community, people often believe they know their neighbours. They recognise familiar faces, understand local relationships and remember events that happened years earlier.

That familiarity can be comforting, but it can also be deceptive.

What if someone has spent years concealing something important? What if a respected member of the community isn't quite the person everyone believes them to be? And what happens when someone begins asking questions that local people would prefer not to answer?

These are the questions that offer enormous possibilities for a mystery writer. When someone who has lived in a community all their life discovers that the place they thought they knew is hiding something extraordinary, even the most familiar relationships can become uncertain.

Introduce psychic visions and an unexplained murder into that environment, and the possibilities become even more interesting.

The importance of making Misthaven believable

I've always believed that supernatural fiction works best when the world surrounding the extraordinary events feels convincing. Readers may be willing to accept a ghost, a vision or something that apparently defies explanation, but they still need to believe in the people and places around it.

If everything is strange, nothing feels particularly strange.

That's why I think it's important to establish a recognisable world before disrupting it. An island community needs the same ordinary concerns as anywhere else. People have jobs, families, friendships and disagreements. They worry about money, relationships and what other people think of them.

Some enjoy living somewhere relatively isolated, while others might dream of escaping. Some have deep roots in the community, while others have arrived more recently.

And, like any community, people have their own versions of the past, shaped by memory, experience and sometimes a little selective interpretation.

I wanted Misthaven to feel like somewhere that could exist beyond the pages of the novel. Not simply a collection of locations where important scenes happen, but a place where everyday life continues even while something deeply unsettling is unfolding.

That contrast is important because a murder mystery becomes more compelling when it interrupts a world that otherwise feels normal. The supernatural, too, becomes more convincing when it emerges from circumstances the reader recognises rather than a world where extraordinary events are simply expected.

The fog changes everything

I couldn't write about Misthaven Island without discussing the fog. It's there in the title, after all, but I wanted it to do more than provide a convenient way of making the island look mysterious.

Fog changes the way we experience a place.

A familiar road becomes difficult to recognise, a building that should be visible from a distance disappears and sounds seem closer or further away than they really are. Our imaginations begin filling in the details we can no longer see.

A shadow in the distance might be a person, a tree or something entirely different. Until the mist clears, neither the character nor the reader can be certain, and that uncertainty creates opportunities for suspense without requiring anything particularly dramatic to happen.

There's another reason fog appeals to me, though. It works as a metaphor for the mystery itself, because when a story begins, the reader sees only part of the picture.

There are questions without answers, events without explanations and characters whose motivations remain uncertain. As the investigation progresses, some of those uncertainties begin to disappear, revealing details that were previously hidden.

But sometimes, what becomes visible is considerably more disturbing than anything the reader imagined.

That's the kind of mystery I enjoy writing. One where each discovery provides an answer while raising another question, and where the truth, when it finally emerges, changes our understanding of everything that came before.

Lillie and the problem of knowing too much

At the heart of Whispers in the Fog is Lillie, a young woman whose disturbing psychic visions draw her into a murder mystery. I've always been interested in characters who experience something they cannot easily explain, particularly when that experience creates more problems than it solves.

Imagine knowing something about an event you couldn't possibly have witnessed. Perhaps you've seen a place you've never visited, or experienced a vision that appears connected to something terrible.

You might believe the experience is genuine, but convincing anyone else is another matter.

And what happens if the information you possess makes other people suspicious of you?

For Lillie, the visions create uncertainty rather than providing a straightforward solution. They suggest that something important is hidden beneath the surface, but understanding what they mean is difficult enough without having to persuade other people to take them seriously.

As suspicion begins to fall upon her, the consequences become increasingly personal. I wanted that tension to sit at the centre of the story because having unusual knowledge doesn't necessarily make someone powerful.

Sometimes it makes them vulnerable.

A character who knows something they shouldn't can find themselves facing difficult questions about where the information came from, why they possess it and what they might be concealing. In a close-knit island community, those questions can become particularly dangerous.

Once people begin to suspect someone, even perfectly ordinary behaviour can start to look suspicious. A chance encounter, an unexplained absence or an unfortunate coincidence might suddenly appear significant, particularly when people are already searching for someone to blame.

Discover Whispers in the Fog on Amazon

When everybody knows everybody

There's a particular kind of tension that comes from setting a mystery within a small community. In a large city, anonymity is relatively easy. People can move through their lives without attracting much attention and may know very little about those living a few doors away.

A smaller community can be quite different.

People notice changes in behaviour, know who has fallen out with whom and remember relationships, disagreements and events that might otherwise have been forgotten. At least, they remember their version of those events.

And that's where things become interesting.

Memory isn't always reliable. People can witness the same incident and interpret it differently, while details become exaggerated through repeated retelling or disappear entirely. Sometimes a community develops a shared understanding of something that turns out to be completely wrong.

For a mystery writer, that creates plenty of opportunities.

A character might believe they're protecting someone by keeping quiet, while another has convinced themselves that an uncomfortable event happened differently from the way it actually did. Someone else might know the truth but have spent years ensuring nobody discovers it.

Their reasons may be understandable, selfish or somewhere between the two, but the consequences of their silence can affect people who know nothing about the original events.

The island setting allows those relationships and histories to become part of the mystery. Misthaven isn't simply somewhere a crime has taken place. It's a community whose relationships, memories and secrets help shape the events that follow.

The supernatural should raise questions

One of the decisions I make when writing supernatural fiction is how much to explain. There's a temptation to establish rules for everything, from how psychic visions work and why certain people experience them to whether they can be trusted and what causes the unexplained events.

Sometimes those explanations are necessary, but I think too much certainty can weaken a mystery.

The unexplained is interesting precisely because it challenges our understanding, and providing immediate answers removes some of that uncertainty. In Whispers in the Fog, Lillie's visions are important to the story, but they don't remove the need for investigation.

Characters still have to make decisions, examine information and confront uncomfortable possibilities, even when something apparently supernatural offers a glimpse of the truth.

I didn't want the visions to become a convenient way of solving every problem. Instead, they needed to complicate the situation, raising questions that might otherwise never have been asked.

A vision might reveal something important, but interpreting it correctly is another matter. Even if Lillie understands what she's experienced, persuading other people to believe her creates an entirely different challenge.

That's where the supernatural and the human mystery begin to overlap.

The unexplained event may be extraordinary, but the reactions it provokes are recognisably human, involving doubt, suspicion, fear and the desire to protect ourselves from uncomfortable truths.

The island as a character

Writers sometimes describe a setting as being a character in its own right. It's a phrase that's probably overused, but I think there's some truth in it because a location can influence the decisions people make and shape the way they understand their circumstances.

An isolated island does all three. Its geography affects movement, its weather influences the atmosphere and its community creates relationships and expectations. Its history can also become part of the mystery, particularly when past events continue to influence the present.

When those elements work together, the setting stops feeling like somewhere the writer has simply placed the characters. It becomes part of the story's structure, influencing what people know, how they behave and the choices available to them.

I explored this idea more broadly in my earlier article, When ordinary places become extraordinary: The importance of setting in supernatural fiction.

Misthaven is a good example of why I find the relationship between character and setting so important. Lillie's experiences would create uncertainty wherever she lived, but on an island where reputations matter and people may have known one another for years, that uncertainty takes on a different significance.

The setting changes the consequences of the mystery, affecting not only the investigation but also the way other people respond to Lillie.

That's exactly what I wanted it to do.

My journalism background and the search for truth

My background as a journalist has influenced the way I approach fiction, particularly mysteries. Journalism teaches you to ask questions, examine evidence and consider whether the information you've been given tells the whole story.

Who knows what, how do they know it and what evidence supports their account? Perhaps most importantly, what isn't being said? Those questions are just as useful when developing a fictional murder mystery as they are when investigating a real event.

Every character has a perspective, and those perspectives aren't necessarily reliable.

Some people may be mistaken, others deliberately misleading, while someone else might tell the truth but leave out the one detail that would change everything.

I've always found that particularly interesting because a person doesn't necessarily need to lie to conceal something. They can answer a question accurately while avoiding the issue that matters, or describe what they witnessed without explaining why they were there.

They might even provide a perfectly reasonable account of events that encourages everyone to draw the wrong conclusion. From the outside, their explanation appears convincing, but the reader gradually begins to notice that something doesn't quite fit.

When writing a mystery, I enjoy considering what each character knows, what they believe and what they're prepared to reveal. Just as importantly, I think about what might make them change their mind and whether discovering the truth would actually be in their interests.

On Misthaven Island, where the community's past and present are closely connected, those questions become especially relevant.

The truth may be hidden, but it rarely exists in isolation. It affects people, and people have reasons for wanting it discovered or concealed.

How much should a reader see?

Something else I enjoy about writing mysteries is deciding when to reveal information. Give the reader too much too early and the mystery loses its momentum, but withhold everything and the story risks becoming frustrating.

The challenge is finding the balance.

I like giving readers enough information to begin forming their own theories, while ensuring there's still something important they haven't understood.

A conversation might contain a detail that seems unimportant at first, a character might react unexpectedly to a question or something that appears to be a coincidence might take on greater significance later. Readers notice these things, even if they don't immediately understand them.

That's part of the pleasure of reading a mystery. You're not simply following the characters through a series of events, but trying to work things out alongside them, examining the same clues and occasionally reaching very different conclusions.

In supernatural fiction, that process becomes even more interesting because readers must also decide how much of the unexplained they're prepared to accept.

Is something genuinely paranormal, could there be a rational explanation or is the supernatural event concealing a much more human secret?

I enjoy leaving those questions open long enough for readers to consider different possibilities. After all, a mystery is much more satisfying when the answers feel earned rather than appearing simply because the author has decided it's time to reveal them.

The stories hidden beneath the surface

There's another reason I find island settings so appealing. They suggest that every place has a history extending far beyond the events of the novel, shaped by generations of people whose lives have left their mark on the community.

Relationships have developed and ended, decisions have been made and mistakes have been concealed. The consequences of those events may still influence the people living there today, even when the original circumstances have been forgotten.

I don't think every part of that history needs to appear on the page.

In fact, it can be more effective when readers sense that there's more to a place than the story explicitly reveals, allowing them to imagine the lives and events that have shaped it.

A brief reference to something that happened years earlier, an uncomfortable silence when a particular name is mentioned or a disagreement that seems to have no obvious explanation can suggest a much larger world.

Those details make the setting feel lived in, and sometimes they provide the first indication that the past is about to become important again. Something apparently insignificant may eventually reveal a connection to events that nobody expected to revisit.

In Whispers in the Fog, the island's atmosphere and sense of concealed history contribute to the unfolding murder mystery. The supernatural adds another layer of uncertainty, but beneath it all are the recognisable human concerns that interest me most.

Trust, suspicion, relationships and the consequences of secrets that refuse to remain buried.

Those are the things that give the mystery its meaning, because even when the events themselves are extraordinary, the emotions and motivations behind them remain familiar.

What Misthaven taught me about writing

Every story teaches its author something. Sometimes it's about structure or pacing, sometimes it's about understanding a character's motivations, and occasionally it's about discovering that the setting you've created has a much greater influence on the story than you originally anticipated.

Writing Whispers in the Fog reinforced my belief that atmosphere works best when it grows naturally from the world and the characters.

Fog is useful, but fog alone doesn't create a compelling mystery, just as an isolated island provides little tension unless its isolation affects the people living there.

Psychic visions can introduce fascinating questions, but those questions become meaningful only when they have consequences for the person experiencing them. The different elements need to work together rather than competing for the reader's attention.

Setting, character, mystery and the supernatural all have their part to play. When they complement one another, readers become immersed in a world that feels believable even when extraordinary things begin to happen.

That's what I wanted to achieve with Misthaven Island.

Somewhere readers could imagine visiting, perhaps enjoying a peaceful afternoon exploring the coastline or watching the sea from a sheltered spot.

But perhaps somewhere they'd think twice about remaining after the fog begins to roll in.

Discover Whispers in the Fog

If you enjoy supernatural mysteries involving psychic visions, murder investigations and communities with secrets to hide, Whispers in the Fog might be your next read.

Set on the isolated Misthaven Island, the novel follows Lillie as her disturbing visions draw her into a mystery that threatens to overwhelm her. As suspicion grows and the island's secrets begin to emerge, she must confront events that challenge her understanding of what is possible.

Read Whispers in the Fog on Amazon

You can also explore my other supernatural fiction.

The Last Caller

A bereavement support worker receives a telephone call from a woman who should be dead, leading him towards a devastating fire, concealed family relationships and disturbing truths about his past.

Discover The Last Caller on Amazon

GHOSTED

An atmospheric supernatural mystery short story exploring the unsettling space between everyday life and the unexplained.

Discover GHOSTED on Amazon

For more articles about supernatural mysteries, writing and the inspiration behind my fiction, visit my author website.

One final thought

Imagine standing on the shore of Misthaven Island. The sea is calm and somewhere behind you, the ordinary routines of island life continue. There's nothing particularly threatening about the scene, and for a moment it could be any peaceful coastal community.

Then the fog begins to move in.

The mainland disappears, the familiar coastline becomes difficult to recognise and somewhere beyond the mist, you hear something you cannot explain. Perhaps it's nothing, or perhaps there's a perfectly reasonable explanation that simply isn't obvious.

Or perhaps the island has been keeping a secret.

Would you investigate, ask the locals what they know or decide that some mysteries are better left alone? It's a question I enjoy leaving with readers because their answer might reveal as much about them as it does about the story.

That's the wonderful thing about creating a fictional world. I can build the island, introduce the characters and begin revealing its secrets, but once readers arrive, Misthaven becomes somewhere they experience for themselves.

And what they imagine might be waiting in the fog could be far more unsettling than anything I could describe.

Welcome to Misthaven Island.

Just remember, not everything is as it seems.

E.M. Wallis

Author of Whispers in the Fog, The Last Caller and GHOSTED

Visit the E.M. Wallis author website

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When the impossible becomes personal: Creating believable characters in supernatural fiction

E.M. Wallis — Thu, 5 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ghosts, visions and mysterious telephone calls might draw readers into a supernatural mystery, but it's the people caught up in those extraordinary events who make them care. Author E.M. Wallis explores why believable characters are at the heart of the stories we remember.

It starts with a person, not a ghost

Imagine receiving a telephone call from someone who died twenty years ago.

You recognise the voice. You know the person is dead. Yet they're speaking to you as clearly as if they were sitting in the next room.

What would you do?

Perhaps you'd hang up, convinced someone was playing a particularly unpleasant practical joke.

You might demand to know who was calling, or ask questions that only the person you remembered could possibly answer.

Or perhaps you'd simply sit there, unable to speak, trying to make sense of something that shouldn't be happening.

That's the interesting part of supernatural fiction for me.

Not the impossible telephone call itself, but the person answering it.

When I'm writing a supernatural mystery, I don't begin by asking how frightening I can make the ghost, the vision or the unexplained event.

I'm more interested in how someone might react when an experience challenges everything they believe about the world.

Because however extraordinary the circumstances become, the characters need to remain recognisably human.

And human beings are wonderfully complicated.

The problem with perfectly sensible characters

There's a familiar moment in supernatural fiction when a character hears a disturbing noise coming from a darkened room.

Naturally, they decide to investigate.

Readers, meanwhile, are probably thinking something along the lines of, "Don't be ridiculous. Get out of the house."

I've certainly had that reaction myself.

But there's a difficulty here for writers. If every character behaves with complete rationality, exercises perfect judgement and immediately removes themselves from danger, a great many supernatural stories would be over before they'd properly begun.

The answer isn't to make characters foolish.

It's to give them believable reasons for making decisions that might otherwise seem unreasonable.

Perhaps the character has heard a child crying and believes someone needs help.

Perhaps they're searching for a missing relative.

Or perhaps the disturbing sound comes from a room associated with someone they loved and lost.

Suddenly, walking towards the noise becomes understandable.

The decision might still be dangerous, but we can see why they've made it.

That's an important distinction.

Readers don't necessarily need to agree with a character's choices. They need to understand them.

And sometimes, the choices that seem least sensible from the outside make perfect emotional sense to the person making them.

When the past refuses to stay buried

I've always been interested in the way our experiences shape our understanding of the present.

Two people can witness exactly the same event and come away with very different interpretations.

One might see a coincidence. Another might believe they've witnessed something supernatural.

Their reactions will depend on what they know, what they've experienced and what they're prepared to believe.

This is particularly useful in supernatural fiction because the unexplained rarely arrives in a vacuum.

Characters bring their memories, relationships, regrets and fears into the story.

And those things influence what happens next.

In my novel The Last Caller, Jacob works for a bereavement support service.

His working life involves listening to people who are struggling with loss. He understands that grief can affect people in complicated and sometimes unexpected ways.

Then he receives a telephone call from a woman who should be dead.

The premise is supernatural, but the mystery becomes personal as Jacob begins uncovering connections to a devastating fire and secrets surrounding his own family.

I wanted the impossible call to do more than provide an intriguing opening.

It needed to challenge Jacob's understanding of his life.

The questions he faces aren't simply about who is calling him or how such a conversation could take place.

They're also about trust, identity and the uncomfortable possibility that important parts of his history have been concealed from him.

For me, those human questions are what give the supernatural mystery its emotional weight.

A ghost might make someone frightened.

Discovering that the people you trusted have been keeping secrets can change your entire understanding of who you are.

Discover The Last Caller on Amazon

Why characters need something to lose

One of the most important questions I ask when developing a story is surprisingly simple.

Why does this matter to the character?

It's easy to create an intriguing mystery.

A body is discovered. Someone disappears. A strange figure appears in a photograph. A voice is heard in an empty building.

Any of those could provide the beginning of a story.

But the mystery becomes much more compelling when the person investigating it has something at stake.

Perhaps they're trying to clear their name.

Perhaps the truth could destroy an important relationship.

Or perhaps they're desperate to discover what happened to someone they loved.

In Whispers in the Fog, Lillie's psychic visions draw her into a murder mystery on Misthaven Island.

Her experiences create uncertainty because they suggest knowledge she cannot easily explain.

But the situation becomes considerably more serious when suspicion begins to fall upon her.

She isn't simply trying to understand her visions.

She's caught up in events that threaten her future and her relationships with the people around her.

That changes the nature of the story.

A character investigating a mystery out of curiosity can always decide to walk away.

A character whose life is being affected by the mystery may not have that luxury.

And when the stakes become personal, the reader has a much stronger reason to keep turning the pages.

Discover Whispers in the Fog on Amazon

Fear is rarely straightforward

Something else I've noticed, both in life and in fiction, is that people don't always respond to frightening situations in the way we expect.

Some become quiet.

Others talk incessantly.

Some make jokes, even when the circumstances are anything but amusing.

And a few appear remarkably calm until the danger has passed.

There's no single correct way to react to fear.

That gives writers an enormous amount of freedom, but it also creates a responsibility to understand their characters.

A person who has experienced significant loss might respond differently to an apparent message from the dead than someone who has never encountered bereavement.

A character who prides themselves on being rational might struggle to accept an experience that has no obvious explanation.

Someone who already believes in the supernatural might be more willing to investigate, but that doesn't mean they'll be any less frightened.

I find those differences fascinating.

They also help prevent characters from becoming little more than vehicles for moving the plot forward.

If everyone responds to the same situation in exactly the same way, the story begins to feel artificial.

Real people disagree. They misunderstand one another. They make assumptions, conceal their feelings and occasionally say completely the wrong thing.

Sometimes they even laugh when they probably shouldn't.

Those imperfections are part of what makes them believable.

And believable characters make extraordinary events considerably more convincing.

The danger of explaining too much

One of the temptations when writing supernatural fiction is to explain everything.

Why the ghost appears.

How the visions work.

What caused the strange event.

And exactly what every character is thinking and feeling.

But I think mystery needs a little room to breathe.

Readers enjoy making discoveries for themselves.

They notice details, form theories and gradually assemble their own understanding of the story.

The same applies to characters.

If a character tells us they're frightened, we understand the information.

But if they hesitate before answering a telephone, check that a door is locked for the third time or deliberately avoid looking towards a darkened window, we begin to experience their unease.

Those small actions can reveal more than a paragraph explaining their emotions.

I enjoy working with those details.

A character might insist they don't believe in ghosts, then leave every light on before going to bed.

Someone might dismiss a strange experience as coincidence, yet find themselves returning to it again and again.

Their words tell us one thing.

Their behaviour tells us another.

And the gap between the two can be particularly revealing.

Ordinary people in extraordinary situations

I don't think a supernatural mystery necessarily needs a character with unusual abilities.

Sometimes, the most compelling person to place at the centre of a story is someone whose life is completely ordinary.

They have a job, relationships, responsibilities and problems that have nothing to do with ghosts.

They worry about money, family, work and whether they've remembered to put the bins out.

Then something happens that changes everything.

The contrast matters.

When the world surrounding a character feels familiar, an impossible event becomes much more striking.

That's one reason I enjoy placing supernatural mysteries within recognisable everyday circumstances.

A telephone conversation at work.

A familiar street.

A photograph.

A room someone has entered hundreds of times before.

The extraordinary doesn't need to announce itself with thunder and lightning.

Sometimes it simply interrupts an ordinary Tuesday.

I explored the importance of these familiar surroundings in my previous article, When ordinary places become extraordinary: The importance of setting in supernatural fiction.

But setting and character are closely connected.

A familiar place becomes unsettling because of what it means to the person experiencing it.

An empty house might be frightening to one character and comforting to another.

A telephone ringing in the night might be an irritation, a source of hope or the beginning of something terrifying.

The object or location hasn't changed.

The meaning has.

The people who don't believe

There's another type of character I particularly enjoy in supernatural fiction.

The sceptic.

Every good supernatural mystery benefits from someone prepared to question what everyone else believes.

Perhaps they're convinced there's a rational explanation.

Perhaps they suspect someone is lying.

Or perhaps they've experienced something themselves but are determined not to acknowledge it.

Sceptical characters can create useful tension because they force others to examine their assumptions.

But I think they work best when their doubts are genuine rather than simply obstructive.

After all, if someone told you they'd received a telephone call from a dead person, you probably wouldn't accept the claim without asking a few questions.

I certainly wouldn't.

My journalism background has probably influenced that aspect of my writing.

I've spent much of my professional life asking questions, checking information and trying to establish what actually happened.

Those habits don't disappear when I sit down to write fiction.

In fact, they're particularly useful when developing a mystery.

What evidence does the character have?

What assumptions are they making?

Who might benefit from concealing the truth?

And what alternative explanation has everyone overlooked?

The supernatural element introduces uncertainty, but the investigation still needs to feel credible.

A convincing sceptic helps maintain that balance.

Giving characters room to change

A good supernatural mystery should leave its central character somewhere different from where they began.

That doesn't necessarily mean a happy ending.

Nor does it mean every question must be answered.

But the experience should matter.

Perhaps the character has discovered an uncomfortable truth.

Perhaps they've confronted a memory they've spent years avoiding.

Or perhaps they've realised that their understanding of the world was less certain than they believed.

Sometimes, the change is subtle.

A character who began the story refusing to believe in anything supernatural might finish it with a little more uncertainty.

They may never admit what happened.

They may never discuss it again.

But the next time they hear an unexplained noise in an empty house, perhaps they'll hesitate before dismissing it.

I like that sort of ending.

It allows the mystery to continue beyond the final page, at least in the reader's imagination.

And that can be far more satisfying than explaining every last detail.

What short stories have taught me about character

Writing a short story creates a different challenge.

In a novel, there's time to develop relationships, explore backstories and gradually reveal what motivates the characters.

A short story doesn't offer the same luxury.

Every scene has to work harder.

When I wrote GHOSTED, I wanted to create an atmospheric supernatural mystery that readers could enjoy in a single sitting.

That meant being selective about what the reader needed to know.

You don't necessarily need a character's complete life history to understand them.

Sometimes, one decision can reveal something important.

A moment of hesitation.

An unexpected reaction.

A refusal to answer a question.

A choice that places someone else before themselves.

Those details can establish personality surprisingly quickly.

They also remind me that character development isn't simply about adding more description.

It's about choosing the right information and revealing it at the right moment.

If you're interested in the thinking behind the story, I've written more about it in GHOSTED: The story behind my supernatural mystery.

Read GHOSTED on Amazon

The real mystery is often human

The more supernatural fiction I write, the more convinced I become that the unexplained is only part of the story.

Ghosts, visions and impossible events provide wonderful opportunities for mystery.

But they're often most effective when they reveal something about the living.

A hidden resentment.

An unresolved loss.

A relationship built on secrets.

A decision someone regrets.

Or a truth that has remained concealed for so long that revealing it threatens everything a character believes.

Those are the things that interest me.

And they're often the questions that stay with readers after the supernatural mystery itself has been resolved.

I explored a related idea in The psychology of fear: Why the unseen frightens us most.

Our imaginations play an enormous role in the way we experience fear.

But so do our memories, expectations and personal experiences.

The same shadow can mean something very different to two people.

And the same impossible event can change their lives in entirely different ways.

That's why I believe character and mystery need to develop together.

The supernatural event gives the character a problem.

The character's history and personality determine how they respond.

And their decisions shape the story that follows.

Discover my supernatural mysteries

If you enjoy supernatural fiction where the characters and their personal histories are as important as the unexplained events surrounding them, you might like to explore my books.

Whispers in the Fog

On the isolated Misthaven Island, Lillie's psychic visions draw her into a murder mystery where hidden secrets and growing suspicion place her in danger.

Read Whispers in the Fog on Amazon

The Last Caller

A bereavement support worker receives an impossible telephone call that leads him towards a devastating fire, concealed family relationships and disturbing truths about his own past.

Read The Last Caller on Amazon

GHOSTED

An atmospheric supernatural mystery short story exploring the unsettling space between ordinary life and the unexplained.

Read GHOSTED on Amazon

You can also find more articles about supernatural fiction, storytelling and the inspiration behind my books on my author website.

One final thought

Imagine that telephone ringing again.

The caller is someone who should be dead.

You recognise the voice.

You know the conversation is impossible.

Now forget, for a moment, about ghosts and the supernatural.

Think about the person holding the telephone.

What do they remember about the caller?

What did they leave unsaid?

What would they give for one more conversation?

And what might they discover if they continued listening?

That's where the story really begins.

Because the impossible might capture a reader's attention, but it's the human consequences that keep them turning the pages.

A ghost can haunt a house. A secret can haunt a lifetime.

And sometimes, the second is far more unsettling than the first.

E.M. Wallis

Author of Whispers in the Fog, The Last Caller and GHOSTED

Visit the E.M. Wallis author website

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When ordinary places become extraordinary: The importance of setting in supernatural fiction

E.M. Wallis — Wed, 4 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An isolated island, a familiar room, a telephone ringing in the middle of the night. Supernatural mystery author E.M. Wallis explores why the places we know can sometimes become the most unsettling places of all.

A perfectly ordinary place

There's something rather unsettling about walking into a familiar room and feeling that something isn't quite right.

Nothing has changed. The furniture is where it should be. The windows are closed. The clock is ticking away on the mantelpiece.

Yet something feels different.

Perhaps it's the silence. Perhaps it's a shadow you don't remember seeing before. Or perhaps it's simply that peculiar sensation of being watched when you know you're alone.

Most of us have experienced something like this at one time or another. We usually dismiss it, put the kettle on and get on with our day.

But as a writer of supernatural mysteries, I tend to do something rather different.

I start wondering what might happen next.

What if the feeling doesn't go away? What if the room really has changed, but in a way that's almost impossible to identify? What if someone else walks in and notices exactly the same thing?

Before long, an ordinary room has become the beginning of a story.

And that's what fascinates me about setting. It doesn't have to be spectacular, ancient or even particularly interesting to become the most important place in a supernatural mystery.

Sometimes, the more ordinary it is, the better.

Why familiar places can be frightening

We tend to associate certain places with safety.

Our homes, workplaces and favourite walking routes are familiar. We know what to expect from them, and that familiarity gives us a sense of control.

When something happens that challenges those expectations, it can be deeply unsettling.

Imagine returning home to discover that a photograph has moved. Not disappeared, just moved a few inches along the mantelpiece.

You live alone.

You know you didn't move it.

There are several perfectly reasonable explanations, of course. Perhaps you knocked it while cleaning. Perhaps your memory isn't quite as reliable as you think.

But what if it happens again?

And again?

Suddenly, the place where you feel safest has become somewhere you no longer entirely trust.

I think that's one of the reasons supernatural stories set in ordinary surroundings can be so effective. Readers don't have to imagine themselves in some extraordinary location. They can picture the events happening in their own homes.

A creaking staircase becomes their staircase. A darkened window becomes the one overlooking their garden.

The story follows them out of the book and into the real world.

That's a powerful thing for a writer to achieve.

The isolation of an island

Of course, there are times when the setting itself provides an opportunity to create tension.

In my novel Whispers in the Fog, the story unfolds on Misthaven Island, where Lillie's disturbing psychic visions draw her into a murder mystery.

An island is a particularly interesting setting because it creates a natural sense of separation.

There's the physical distance from the mainland, but there's also the psychological effect of being somewhere with its own community, history and secrets.

People who live in isolated communities often know a great deal about one another. At least, they think they do.

And that creates wonderful possibilities for a mystery writer.

What happens when someone discovers that a familiar neighbour isn't quite the person everyone believed them to be? What if a secret has been kept for generations? What if someone knows the truth but has very good reasons for remaining silent?

The supernatural element adds another layer of uncertainty.

Lillie's visions offer glimpses of things she cannot easily explain, leaving her to question what they mean and whether she can trust them.

The island becomes more than a backdrop. Its isolation, atmosphere and sense of hidden history contribute to the mystery itself.

I also happen to love fog as a storytelling device.

It changes familiar surroundings, conceals details and makes distances difficult to judge. Something that would be perfectly ordinary on a clear afternoon can become surprisingly threatening when it emerges from a bank of mist.

And, of course, there's always the question of what might be waiting just beyond it.

Discover Whispers in the Fog on Amazon

The extraordinary hiding inside everyday life

One of the things I enjoy most about supernatural fiction is the opportunity to introduce something impossible into an otherwise believable world.

The extraordinary becomes much more convincing when everything surrounding it feels real.

Think about the objects we use without giving them a second thought.

A mobile phone. A television. A photograph. A letter that arrives in the post.

We understand what these things are supposed to do.

But what happens when they behave in a way they shouldn't?

That question lies at the heart of my novel The Last Caller.

Jacob works for a bereavement support service, where telephone conversations are an ordinary part of his working life. He listens to people who are grieving, offering support at some of the most difficult moments they will ever experience.

Then he receives a call from a woman who should be dead.

It's an impossible situation, but the means by which it happens is entirely ordinary.

A telephone rings.

Someone answers.

A conversation begins.

I like that contrast. There's no need for a spectacular supernatural event. The mystery begins with something that happens thousands of times every day.

But the identity of the caller changes everything.

As Jacob searches for answers, he begins uncovering connections to a devastating fire, concealed family relationships and secrets from his own past.

The familiar world he thought he understood becomes increasingly uncertain.

For me, the most interesting part of that premise isn't simply the mysterious call. It's the effect the call has on Jacob.

How would any of us react if something apparently impossible challenged everything we believed about our own lives?

Would we search for a rational explanation?

Would we tell someone else?

Or would we begin to question our own judgement?

Those are the questions that make the story interesting to me.

Discover The Last Caller on Amazon

Creating atmosphere without overdoing it

There's a temptation when writing supernatural fiction to make every location dark, abandoned and threatening.

Crumbling buildings. Howling winds. Thunderstorms. Doors slamming in the night.

And there's nothing wrong with any of those things when they're used well.

However, I think atmosphere can be much more effective when it's subtle.

An ordinary house on a bright summer afternoon can be just as unsettling as an abandoned mansion at midnight, provided something happens that makes the reader question what they're seeing.

Sometimes, a single detail is enough.

A chair facing the wrong direction.

A light burning in a house that's supposed to be empty.

A familiar voice coming from somewhere it shouldn't.

These small disturbances work because they interrupt our expectations.

As a writer, I enjoy deciding which details to include and which to leave to the reader's imagination.

Describe everything, and there's very little mystery left.

Describe too little, and the reader may struggle to picture the scene.

The trick is to provide enough information to make the place believable, then introduce something that doesn't belong.

And resist the temptation to explain it immediately.

Why short stories need strong settings

Writing a supernatural mystery in a short format presents its own challenges.

With a novel, there's time to develop locations, introduce characters and gradually build an atmosphere of unease.

A short story has to work much harder.

The reader needs to feel immersed in the world almost immediately.

That's something I considered when writing GHOSTED, my supernatural mystery short story.

I wanted to create an experience that readers could enjoy in a single sitting, while still giving them a sense of mystery and atmosphere.

Short fiction demands a certain discipline. Every description has to earn its place, and the setting needs to contribute to the story rather than simply provide somewhere for the characters to stand.

I think there's something particularly satisfying about a short mystery that stays with the reader after the final page.

You finish reading, put the book down and return to whatever you were doing.

Then, perhaps an hour later, you find yourself thinking about something that happened in the story.

A detail you hadn't considered.

A question that wasn't completely answered.

Or an ordinary object that suddenly seems just a little less ordinary.

That's the sort of reaction I enjoy creating.

If you'd like to know more about the thinking behind the story, I've also written about it in GHOSTED: The story behind my supernatural mystery.

Read GHOSTED on Amazon

The places we carry with us

My background in journalism has probably influenced the way I think about locations and the people who inhabit them.

Every place has a story.

A quiet street might have witnessed extraordinary events. An ordinary building might hold memories that mean something very different to the people who have passed through it.

Two people can stand in exactly the same place and experience it in completely different ways.

For one person, a house might represent security and happiness. For another, it might be associated with grief, regret or a painful memory.

The building hasn't changed.

But its meaning has.

That's an idea I find particularly interesting when writing fiction, because a location can reveal as much about a character as their dialogue or actions.

A person returning to their childhood home might notice things that a stranger would overlook. An unfamiliar room might trigger a memory. A place associated with loss might become somewhere a character has spent years trying to avoid.

When supernatural elements are introduced, those emotional connections can make the mystery even more compelling.

A haunting doesn't necessarily have to be about a ghost.

It might also be about the past refusing to stay where it belongs.

Letting the reader do some of the work

One of the great pleasures of reading is that no two people imagine a fictional setting in quite the same way.

I can describe a narrow corridor, a wooden staircase and a half-open door, but every reader will construct a slightly different picture.

Some will imagine an old Victorian house. Others might picture somewhere they've lived or visited.

And that's where the magic happens.

The reader brings their own experiences, memories and fears into the story.

As a writer, I can suggest that something is waiting beyond the door.

But I don't necessarily need to tell you what it is.

Your imagination will probably come up with something far more personally unsettling than anything I could describe.

I explored this idea in my previous blog, The psychology of fear: Why the unseen frightens us most.

The unknown has an extraordinary ability to capture our attention because our minds naturally try to fill in the gaps.

Setting gives that imagination somewhere to work.

A shadow needs a wall. A mysterious sound needs a room. An unexplained figure needs somewhere to appear.

And sometimes, the most effective thing a writer can do is create the place, introduce the possibility and then leave the reader wondering.

Discover my supernatural mysteries

If you enjoy stories where ordinary places conceal extraordinary secrets, you might like to explore my books.

Whispers in the Fog

A supernatural murder mystery set on Misthaven Island, where psychic visions, hidden secrets and suspicion threaten to overwhelm a young woman searching for the truth.

Read Whispers in the Fog on Amazon

The Last Caller

A supernatural thriller about an impossible telephone call, a devastating fire and the secrets that connect the living to the dead.

Read The Last Caller on Amazon

GHOSTED

An atmospheric supernatural mystery short story exploring the unsettling space between the ordinary and the unexplained.

Read GHOSTED on Amazon

You can also visit my author website for more articles about writing, supernatural mysteries and the stories behind my books.

One final thought

Next time you're somewhere familiar, take a moment to look around.

Perhaps you're sitting in your living room, walking along a quiet street or looking out of a window as darkness begins to fall.

Everything seems perfectly ordinary.

Now imagine that one small thing has changed.

Something you can't quite explain.

Would you notice it?

Would you investigate?

Or would you decide that perhaps some things are better left alone?

That's the wonderful thing about supernatural fiction.

You don't always need to take readers somewhere extraordinary.

Sometimes, you only need to make them look at an ordinary place in an extraordinary way.

And once you've done that, they'll never see it quite the same way again.

E.M. Wallis

Author of Whispers in the Fog, The Last Caller and GHOSTED

Visit the E.M. Wallis author website

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The psychology of fear: Why the unseen frightens us most

E.M. Wallis — Mon, 2 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Why can an unexplained sound, a shadow in an empty room or a mysterious telephone call be more frightening than anything we can actually see? Supernatural mystery author E.M. Wallis explores the psychology of fear and the extraordinary power of the imagination.

The sound in the darkness

You're alone in the house. It's late, the lights are off and everything is quiet. Then you hear something upstairs.

A footstep, perhaps. A faint creak of the floorboards. Nothing particularly dramatic, but enough to make you stop what you're doing and listen.

You tell yourself there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. Houses make noises. Timber expands and contracts. Sound travels in strange ways.

Then you hear it again and suddenly, your imagination begins to work overtime.

Who, or what, could be upstairs? Did you remember to lock the door? Was that really a footstep, or are you simply imagining things?

The remarkable thing is that nothing frightening has actually happened. You haven't seen an intruder, encountered a ghost or witnessed anything that proves you're in danger.

Yet your heart is beating faster.

That's the fascinating thing about fear. Sometimes, what we imagine is considerably more frightening than what we see.

As a writer of supernatural mysteries, it's something I find endlessly intriguing. The most effective ghost stories don't necessarily need terrifying apparitions or spectacular paranormal events. Sometimes, all they need is a suggestion that something isn't quite right.

And a reader willing to imagine what might happen next.

Why our brains fear the unknown

Fear is one of our most important survival mechanisms. It helps us recognise potential danger and prepares us to respond when something threatens our safety.

However, our brains don't always wait for proof that a threat exists.

When we encounter something unexpected or difficult to explain, our minds begin searching for possibilities. We draw upon memories, experiences and expectations to work out what might be happening.

This ability is extraordinarily useful. It allows us to anticipate danger rather than waiting until it's too late.

Unfortunately, it also means we can frighten ourselves with possibilities that exist entirely in our imagination.

Consider walking through a dark woodland. During daylight, the trees and undergrowth might seem perfectly ordinary. At night, those same surroundings become unfamiliar. Shadows obscure familiar shapes, small sounds become difficult to identify and our ability to assess the environment is reduced.

The uncertainty makes us more alert. We begin paying attention to things we might otherwise ignore. A branch snapping. Leaves rustling. A movement somewhere beyond the reach of our torch.

Our minds try to fill in the missing information, sometimes with the most threatening explanation available. For a supernatural mystery writer, that process is a wonderful source of inspiration, because the reader doesn't need to see the danger. They only need to believe it might be there.

The power of anticipation

One of the most effective techniques in suspense fiction is delaying the moment when a mystery is revealed.

Imagine a character standing outside a locked bedroom. They can hear someone moving inside, but they know the house has been empty for years.

What happens next?

The obvious approach would be to have the character open the door and reveal whatever is waiting on the other side.

However, consider the alternative.

The character reaches for the handle, hesitates and listens. The movement stops. They call out, but nobody answers. Then, just as they begin to convince themselves they've imagined everything, something gently turns the handle from the other side.

We still haven't seen anything, yet the tension has increased.

That's because anticipation encourages readers to participate in the story. They begin constructing possible explanations, imagining outcomes and wondering whether the character is about to make a terrible mistake.

Psychologists sometimes describe our tendency to anticipate threatening outcomes as part of the brain's response to uncertainty. When information is incomplete, our expectations can shape how we interpret what happens next.

In fiction, that gives the writer an opportunity to create suspense without revealing the source of the threat.

Sometimes, the moment before the door opens is more frightening than whatever might be standing behind it.

Why shadows and silence are so effective

Darkness has featured in frightening stories for centuries, and there's a good reason for that.

When we cannot see clearly, we lose information that would normally help us understand our surroundings. Familiar objects become ambiguous. Ordinary shapes can appear threatening, and movement is harder to interpret.

A coat hanging behind a door might briefly resemble a person. A reflection in a window might look like someone standing outside.

Our brains are particularly good at recognising patterns, including human faces and figures, even when the available information is incomplete.

This tendency, known as pareidolia, helps explain why people sometimes perceive recognisable shapes in shadows, clouds or random patterns.

It also gives supernatural writers a useful tool.

A shadow doesn't need to move to become unsettling. It simply needs to resemble something that shouldn't be there.

Silence can be equally powerful.

We often associate quiet surroundings with safety and relaxation, but silence can become uncomfortable when we're expecting something to happen.

Think about a scene in which a character hears footsteps following them. The footsteps stop whenever they stop.

Eventually, the character turns around.

Nothing.

The absence of sound suddenly becomes more disturbing than the footsteps themselves.

Why?

Because the silence doesn't provide an explanation.

It simply leaves the character, and the reader, waiting.

The fear of losing control

There's another reason supernatural mysteries can be so effective.

They challenge our understanding of how the world works.

Most of us move through life with certain expectations. We understand that doors don't normally open by themselves, photographs don't change when nobody is looking and people who died decades ago cannot telephone us.

Those assumptions help make the world feel predictable.

But what happens when something appears to contradict them?

In my book The Last Caller, Jacob is a helpline operator whose life begins to unravel after he receives a mysterious telephone call from a woman who should not be able to contact him.

The telephone itself is completely ordinary. It's something we use every day without giving it much thought.

However, the identity of the caller transforms that familiar object into the centre of a disturbing mystery.

What interests me about this premise isn't simply the possibility of communication beyond death. It's the effect that possibility has on Jacob's understanding of his own life.

As he searches for answers, he begins uncovering secrets that challenge everything he thought he knew about his past.

The supernatural becomes the catalyst for something deeply personal and that's where I believe some of the strongest mysteries are found.

Not simply in the fear of encountering something impossible, but in the fear that the things we've always believed might not be true.

You can discover The Last Caller on Amazon or explore more of my writing on my author website.

When the imagination becomes the storyteller

One of the things I enjoy most about writing supernatural fiction is deciding how much information to give the reader.

Explain too much, and the mystery can lose its power. Reveal too little, and the story risks becoming frustrating rather than intriguing.

The challenge is finding the balance.

I want readers to have enough information to become invested in the mystery, but I also want their imaginations to contribute something to the experience.

In Whispers in the Fog, Lillie's disturbing psychic visions draw her into a murder mystery on Misthaven Island.

Her experiences raise questions about what can be trusted. Are her visions revealing something important? How can she distinguish between what she believes she's witnessed and what others are prepared to accept?

The uncertainty creates tension because both the character and the reader are searching for answers.

In my short story GHOSTED, I explore supernatural mystery in a more concentrated form. Short fiction doesn't offer the same space for gradual development as a novel, so atmosphere, suggestion and carefully chosen details become particularly important.

I enjoy the idea that readers might finish the story and spend a few moments considering what they've just experienced.

Perhaps they'll revisit an earlier detail in their minds.

Perhaps they'll wonder whether something they initially dismissed was more important than it appeared.

Or perhaps they'll glance towards the nearest darkened doorway.

Any of those reactions would make me happy.

You can also read my earlier article, GHOSTED: The story behind my supernatural mystery, where I explore the ideas and creative thinking behind the short story.

Why the supernatural feels personal

Although ghosts and unexplained events provide the atmosphere for supernatural fiction, I believe the most compelling stories are ultimately about people.

Fear is rarely experienced in isolation from our emotions.

We're frightened of losing the people we love. We worry about the consequences of our decisions. We carry regrets, unresolved questions and memories that can influence us long after the events themselves have passed.

Supernatural fiction provides a way of exploring those experiences through extraordinary circumstances.

A haunting might be connected to grief. A mysterious apparition might represent an unresolved injustice. An unexplained message might force someone to confront a secret they've spent years avoiding.

The supernatural event attracts our attention, but the emotional consequences keep us invested.

That's something my background in journalism and public health communications has reinforced.

People are complicated. Their fears and motivations aren't always immediately apparent, and their reactions to difficult situations can be influenced by experiences that others know nothing about.

When I write fiction, I try to remember that even the most extraordinary circumstances need believable human responses.

A character who encounters something impossible shouldn't simply accept it because the plot requires them to.

They should question it, challenge it and struggle to understand what it means.

Just as we might.

Why we enjoy being frightened

If fear is designed to protect us from danger, why do so many people enjoy ghost stories, psychological thrillers and supernatural mysteries?

Part of the answer lies in the difference between experiencing danger and imagining it within a safe environment.

When we read a frightening story, we can experience suspense, uncertainty and emotional excitement while knowing that the events aren't actually happening to us.

We can explore threatening possibilities without facing the same real-world consequences.

There's also the satisfaction of solving a mystery.

Human beings are naturally curious. We want to understand why something happened, what caused it and whether the explanation fits the evidence.

Supernatural mysteries combine that curiosity with the possibility that the answer might challenge our understanding of reality.

For me, that's what makes the genre so appealing.

I don't necessarily want to frighten readers with every page.

I want to intrigue them.

I want them to question what they're reading, consider different explanations and feel compelled to discover the truth.

And occasionally, I want them to wonder whether turning on another light might be a sensible precaution.

Discover my supernatural mysteries

If you enjoy stories that combine psychological suspense, unexplained events and secrets that refuse to remain buried, you might enjoy exploring my fiction.

Whispers in the Fog

On the mysterious Misthaven Island, Lillie's psychic visions draw her into a murder investigation where her extraordinary experiences could lead her towards the truth or make her the focus of suspicion.

Explore Whispers in the Fog on Amazon

GHOSTED

An atmospheric supernatural mystery short story for readers who enjoy the unsettling space between the ordinary and the unexplained.

Read GHOSTED on Amazon

The Last Caller

When helpline operator Jacob receives an impossible telephone call, he becomes entangled in a decades-old mystery involving a devastating house fire, concealed family connections and disturbing questions about his own identity.

Discover The Last Caller on Amazon

You can also visit my author website for more articles about supernatural fiction, writing, book recommendations and the stories behind my books.

One final thought

The next time you hear an unexplained noise in an empty house, notice a strange shadow or feel that someone might be watching you, consider what's actually making you uneasy.

Is it something you've seen?

Or is it something you've imagined?

Because our minds have an extraordinary ability to transform uncertainty into fear.

And sometimes, the most frightening thing in a room isn't what might be hiding in the darkness.

It's what our imagination puts there.

E.M. Wallis

Author of Whispers in the Fog, GHOSTED and The Last Caller

Visit the official E.M. Wallis author website

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GHOSTED: The story behind my supernatural mystery

E.M. Wallis — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What makes a supernatural mystery linger in your imagination long after you've finished reading? Author E.M. Wallis explores the ideas behind GHOSTED, the appeal of short ghost stories and why the unexplained continues to fascinate him.

There's something particularly unsettling about the possibility that the world isn't quite as ordinary as we believe.

We go about our lives surrounded by familiar things. We follow routines, visit familiar places and generally assume that what we see is what we get. Most of the time, we don't question the reality of the world around us but every so often, something makes us hesitate.

An unexpected sound in an empty room. A fleeting movement at the edge of our vision. A coincidence that seems just a little too extraordinary to dismiss.

Usually, we find a perfectly reasonable explanation.

But what if we don't?

That question lies at the heart of my fascination with supernatural fiction, and it's one of the reasons I wrote GHOSTED, my supernatural mystery short story.

I wanted to explore the uncomfortable space between what we know, what we believe and what might be possible when the ordinary world begins to behave in extraordinary ways.

And I wanted to do it in a story that readers could enjoy in a single sitting.

Introducing GHOSTED

Some mysteries refuse to remain in the past.

GHOSTED is a supernatural mystery for readers who enjoy atmospheric storytelling, unsettling questions and the gradual discovery that something isn't quite right.

Rather than relying entirely on horror, I wanted the story to capture the curiosity that draws us towards the unexplained.

For me, a good supernatural mystery should do more than make readers feel uneasy. It should make them ask questions, consider possibilities and want to discover what lies beneath the surface.

There's a particular satisfaction in following a mystery as apparently unrelated details begin to connect. Something that seemed insignificant suddenly becomes important. An assumption is challenged. A new possibility emerges.

And somewhere along the way, the reader begins to wonder whether the explanation will be entirely rational.

That's the kind of experience I enjoy creating.

Discover GHOSTED on Amazon

Why I chose to write a short supernatural mystery

Writing a short story is a very different experience from writing a novel.

In a novel, there's room to develop several characters, introduce subplots and allow the central mystery to unfold gradually. A short story demands greater discipline. Every scene needs to contribute something, and the reader must become invested in the situation relatively quickly.

That presents an interesting challenge for supernatural fiction.

Atmosphere takes time to establish, but a short story doesn't have the luxury of spending several chapters preparing the ground. The writer needs to introduce something intriguing, develop a sense of uncertainty and maintain the reader's curiosity without allowing the pace to falter.

I enjoy that challenge.

A shorter story encourages you to think carefully about what the reader really needs to know. Sometimes, a single detail can suggest an entire history. A brief exchange can reveal something important about a character. An unanswered question can become more compelling than a lengthy explanation.

And when the supernatural enters the picture, suggestion can be particularly powerful.

The reader's imagination is often the writer's greatest ally.

The difference between horror and supernatural mystery

Although ghost stories and supernatural mysteries are frequently grouped together with horror, I don't believe they're quite the same thing.

Horror often aims to provoke fear, shock or dread. Supernatural mystery may contain those elements, but its central attraction is frequently the desire to understand something inexplicable.

Why is this happening?

Who or what is responsible?

And what truth is waiting to be uncovered?

Those questions are what interest me most as a writer.

I enjoy stories in which the supernatural becomes part of a larger puzzle, particularly when the mystery is connected to recognisable human experiences.

People have secrets. They make mistakes. They conceal things from others and sometimes from themselves. They carry regrets and memories that influence their decisions long after the original events have passed.

Introduce something unexplained into those circumstances, and the possibilities become fascinating.

A ghost doesn't necessarily need to be terrifying to be interesting.

Sometimes, the more compelling question is why it might be there at all.

Making the ordinary feel unsettling

One of my favourite techniques in supernatural storytelling is taking something familiar and gradually making it feel unfamiliar.

An empty house is simply an empty house until someone hears footsteps upstairs.

An old photograph is just a photograph until something appears in it that shouldn't be there.

A telephone call is an everyday occurrence until the person speaking should have been dead for decades.

That last idea forms the basis of my novel The Last Caller, but the broader principle influences much of my supernatural writing.

I find the intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life more interesting than creating a world in which everything is supernatural from the beginning.

When readers recognise a situation, they can imagine themselves experiencing it and that's when the mystery becomes personal. It's no longer simply a question of what might happen to a fictional character.

It's a question of what we would do if the same thing happened to us.

Why atmosphere matters

I've always believed that the most effective supernatural stories allow the atmosphere to do some of the work. A writer doesn't necessarily need to describe something frightening in detail. Sometimes, it's enough to create the impression that something is wrong.

A room feels different for no obvious reason. Someone behaves strangely. A familiar place suddenly seems threatening.

Small disturbances can be remarkably effective because they invite the reader to participate. We begin looking for explanations. We notice details. We anticipate what might happen next and anticipation can be far more unsettling than the event itself.

In my writing, I try to balance that atmosphere with a mystery that gives readers a reason to keep turning the pages. I want the story to create questions, but I also want the characters and their circumstances to matter.

Because even when the events are extraordinary, the emotional experiences should feel real.

The challenge of leaving readers wanting more

One of the pleasures of short fiction is that it can be read in a single sitting. There's something satisfying about beginning a story, becoming absorbed in its mystery and reaching the conclusion without having to put the book down.

However, that creates another challenge for the writer. How do you make a relatively brief encounter with fictional characters feel worthwhile?

For me, the answer lies in giving the reader something to think about. A story doesn't necessarily need to explain every detail of its supernatural world. It does, however, need to deliver a satisfying experience and make the central mystery worth following.

I enjoy the idea that readers might finish GHOSTED, close their Kindle and spend a few moments considering what they've just read.

Perhaps they'll think about the characters. Perhaps they'll reconsider something that happened earlier in the story or perhaps they'll simply glance towards the nearest darkened doorway.

I'd be quite happy with any of those reactions.

What readers are saying about GHOSTED

One of the most rewarding parts of publishing independently is hearing directly from readers.

Writing can be a solitary occupation. You spend hours developing characters, revising sentences and trying to decide whether a particular scene achieves what you intended.

Then someone reads the finished story and shares their reaction.

A Goodreads reviewer described GHOSTED as:

"This short paranormal thriller kept me on my toes and turning the page!"

It's encouraging to know that the story has connected with a reader in the way I'd hoped.

Reviews also make a real difference to independent authors. They help potential readers decide whether a book might appeal to them, and they provide valuable feedback for the person who wrote it.

If you've already read I'd love to hear what you thought.

And if you haven't, perhaps it's time to discover what all the mystery is about.

Where GHOSTED fits into my writing

Although my supernatural stories explore different situations, they share a fascination with the unexplained and the secrets people carry.

In Whispers in the Fog, Lillie's psychic visions draw her into a murder mystery on the atmospheric Misthaven Island, where her extraordinary experiences threaten to make her a suspect.

In The Last Caller, helpline operator Jacob receives a mysterious telephone call that leads him towards a decades-old investigation and disturbing revelations about his own past.

And in GHOSTED, I've taken the opportunity to explore supernatural mystery in a shorter form.

Each offers a different reading experience, but all reflect the things that continue to fascinate me as a storyteller.

The uncertainty of the unexplained.

The complexity of human behaviour.

And the possibility that the past isn't always as distant as we imagine.

Discover GHOSTED

If you enjoy ghost stories, paranormal mysteries and fiction that makes you question what might be hiding beneath the surface of ordinary life, I'd love you to give GHOSTED a try.

It's a shorter journey into my imagination, written for readers who enjoy an intriguing mystery with a supernatural edge.

Read GHOSTED on Amazon

And if you enjoy it, please consider leaving an honest review. Every review helps another reader discover the story and makes a difference to an independent author.

One Final Question

What do you enjoy most about supernatural mysteries?

Is it the possibility of encountering something that cannot be explained? The atmosphere of an unsettling location? Or the satisfaction of uncovering a secret that someone desperately wanted to keep hidden?

I'd love to hear your thoughts - you can contact me here.

Because the thing I find most fascinating about supernatural fiction is that, however much we learn about the world, there will always be room for one more question.

What if?

E.M. Wallis

Author of Whispers in the Fog, GHOSTED and The Last Caller

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From Journalism to Fiction: My Journey as a Storyteller

E.M. Wallis — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

From the newsroom to public health communications and supernatural mysteries, E.M. Wallis reflects on a career spent telling stories and the experiences that have shaped his fiction.

I've spent much of my working life telling stories. Some were factual, others were intended to inform, explain or encourage people to take action. More recently, I've found myself telling stories about things that may not exist at all.

Ghosts, unexplained events, mysterious telephone calls and secrets that refuse to remain buried.

I'm E.M. Wallis, a British author, journalist and Public Health Communications Officer whose fascination with human behaviour has found its way into supernatural fiction.

My novel Whispers in the Fog takes readers to the mist-shrouded Misthaven Island, where psychic visions, murder and buried secrets threaten to destroy a young woman's life. My short story GHOSTED explores the unsettling space between the ordinary and the unexplained, while my latest novel, The Last Caller, follows a helpline operator whose mysterious telephone calls uncover a disturbing history of deception, guilt and family secrets.

At first glance, these stories might seem a world away from journalism and public health communications.

But the more I think about it, the more I realise they have something fundamental in common, they all begin with people. Their experiences, their motivations, their fears and the decisions that shape their lives.

The journalist's instinct

Journalism teaches you to be curious. You learn to ask questions, examine information and look beyond the obvious explanation. You discover that the first version of a story isn't necessarily the complete version, and that sometimes the most revealing detail emerges from an apparently insignificant remark.

You also learn the importance of listening. Not simply waiting for someone to finish speaking so you can ask your next question, but listening for the things that matter. The hesitation before an answer. The detail someone returns to repeatedly. The emotion behind a seemingly ordinary statement.

A good journalist understands that facts are essential, but facts alone don't always explain why a story matters. It's the human experience behind those facts that gives them meaning.

That understanding has stayed with me throughout my career and continues to influence the fictional characters I create. Real people are complicated. Their motivations are sometimes contradictory, and their decisions are influenced by experiences that aren't immediately apparent.

For a fiction writer, that complexity is invaluable.

From journalism to public health communications

Most recently, my professional career has taken me into local government, working as a Public Health Communications Officer.

It's a role that has brought together many of the skills I developed through journalism, but with an additional responsibility. Rather than simply reporting on issues affecting people's lives, I've been involved in communicating information intended to improve health, raise awareness, encourage positive behaviour change and help people access support.

My work has covered subjects including domestic abuse, alcohol-related harm and preventative health services. These are issues that require more than an eye-catching headline or a carefully worded press release. They require understanding people.

Why might someone ignore an important health message? What prevents a person from asking for support? How do fear, stigma and personal experience influence the decisions we make?

And how can we communicate in a way that encourages someone to take a positive step without making them feel judged?

These questions have fascinated me professionally, but they've also influenced my approach to fiction.

A compelling character isn't necessarily someone who makes the right decisions. Often, it's someone whose choices we can understand, even when we disagree with them.

And sometimes, the most interesting part of a story is what a character chooses not to say.

When facts give way to imagination

There is a wonderful freedom in fiction. As a journalist, you cannot invent an event because it would make the story more interesting. In public health communications, you cannot exaggerate evidence simply because it might persuade more people to act. Accuracy and credibility are essential.

Fiction removes those particular restrictions, but replaces them with a different responsibility. The world you create must make sense on its own terms. Characters need motivations, events need consequences and revelations must feel earned.

For someone accustomed to asking questions and searching for answers, mystery fiction feels like a natural progression.

The difference is that, as a novelist, I get to create the questions in the first place and because I write supernatural mysteries, I can occasionally break the rules of reality.

That's where things become particularly enjoyable.

Why the supernatural?

I've always been fascinated by the things we cannot easily explain. Not necessarily because I believe every ghost story or paranormal account, but because uncertainty can be such a powerful starting point for storytelling.

Imagine hearing footsteps in an empty house. There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation. Perhaps the building is settling, or sound is travelling from somewhere unexpected.

But what if there isn't? That simple question opens the door to countless possibilities.

The supernatural also provides a way of exploring very human experiences. Grief, guilt, regret, love and the consequences of past decisions can all become central to a ghost story.

In Whispers in the Fog, Lillie's psychic visions raise questions about truth, trust and what happens when someone experiences something nobody else is prepared to believe.

In The Last Caller, a mysterious telephone call becomes the beginning of an investigation into Jacob's own identity. What interests me most about the premise isn't simply the possibility of a voice from beyond the grave. It's what happens when someone discovers that their understanding of their own past may be completely wrong.

The ghost is often only the beginning.

The real story lies in what happens to the living.

More than novels

Although supernatural fiction occupies a significant part of my imagination, it isn't the only way I enjoy telling stories.

My poetry collection, Awaken the Warrior Inside, explores courage, resilience and the human experience through a different form of writing.

Songwriting offers another creative outlet. A song needs to establish a mood, develop an idea and create an emotional connection within a relatively short space of time. Sometimes it tells a complete story. Sometimes it captures a single moment or feeling.

I enjoy moving between these different forms because each teaches me something about the others.

Journalism encourages precision. Public health communications reinforces the importance of audience and empathy. Fiction encourages imagination. Poetry teaches economy of language, while songwriting reminds me of the importance of rhythm and emotion.

All of them depend on finding the right words.

The life of an independent author

Writing a book is one thing. Getting people to discover it is another.

As an independent author, I've learned that completing a manuscript is only part of the journey. There are covers to consider, descriptions to write, publishing decisions to make and the ongoing challenge of introducing your work to readers who have never heard of you.

That's one of the reasons I've developed this author website.

I want it to be more than a place where visitors can find links to my books. I want to share the ideas behind my writing, explore the supernatural mysteries that have influenced the genre and introduce readers to stories and authors they might otherwise never discover.

If someone arrives here looking for a recommendation and leaves having found a new favourite book, I'll consider that worthwhile.

And if they happen to discover one of mine along the way, so much the better.

Still learning, still writing

I don't think there is a point at which a writer stops learning. Every story presents a new challenge, every character develops in unexpected ways and every completed manuscript offers lessons that become useful when the next blank page appears.

But the fascination remains.

There is something remarkable about beginning with an idea that exists only in your imagination and gradually transforming it into a world that another person can enter.

A character who didn't exist begins to feel real. A place you've invented acquires a history. A mystery develops until even you find yourself eager to reach the next revelation.

Eventually, someone you've never met opens the book and begins reading. For a while, they inhabit a world you created. I find that an extraordinary privilege.

My journey from journalism through public health communications and into fiction hasn't been a departure from storytelling. It's been a continuation of it, using different methods, different audiences and occasionally allowing the impossible to become possible.

I still ask questions. I still look for the story beneath the surface. And I still believe that words, carefully chosen and thoughtfully arranged, have the power to make people feel something.

The only real difference is that these days, some of the people I interview exist entirely in my imagination.

And occasionally, they're dead.

Discover my Books

If you've enjoyed reading about my journey from journalism to fiction, perhaps you'd like to explore some of the stories that have emerged along the way.

Whispers in the Fog: A supernatural mystery set on Misthaven Island, where psychic visions, murder and long-buried secrets draw Lillie into a dangerous search for the truth.

GHOSTED: A supernatural mystery short story exploring the unsettling space between the ordinary and the unexplained.

The Last Caller: When a helpline operator receives a mysterious telephone call from a woman who should not be able to reach him, he becomes entangled in a decades-old mystery involving a devastating fire, family secrets and a past he never knew existed.

Awaken the Warrior Inside: A poetry collection exploring courage, resilience and the human experience.

Explore my books and discover more about the stories behind them.

Let's Talk About Stories

Have you ever thought about writing a book? Perhaps you've changed careers, discovered a creative passion later in life or found that experiences from one part of your life have unexpectedly influenced another.

I'd love to hear about it - you can contact me here: Contact | E.M. Wallis

After all, everyone has a story.

Some of us simply can't resist writing them down.

E.M. Wallis

Author, poet, songwriter and storyteller

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Why do we love ghost stories? The psychology behind our fascination with the supernatural

E.M. Wallis — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Why do we enjoy being frightened by things we cannot explain? From haunted houses to voices from beyond the grave, E.M. Wallis explores the psychology of ghost stories and why the supernatural continues to captivate our imaginations.

There's something wonderfully contradictory about our relationship with ghost stories. We know we're reading fiction, yet we still glance towards the darkened doorway. We understand that the footsteps belong to a character in a book, yet the slightest creak from the landing suddenly demands our attention.

Why do we do it? Why do we willingly invite fear into our lives, particularly when the world already provides more than enough reasons to be frightened?

Perhaps the answer lies not in our fascination with death, but in our relationship with the unknown.

As an author of supernatural mysteries, I've often wondered why we find the unexplained so compelling. It's a fascination that runs through my own fiction, from the psychic visions and hidden secrets of Whispers in the Fog to the unsettling mysteries of GHOSTED and the impossible telephone calls at the heart of The Last Caller.

For me, the appeal has never been simply about frightening readers. It's about what happens when ordinary people encounter something that challenges everything they believe.

And perhaps, somewhere beneath our enjoyment of a good ghost story, we're searching for answers to questions that have troubled humanity for centuries.

The pleasure of being frightened

Fear is an emotion most of us spend our lives trying to avoid. We lock our doors, look both ways before crossing the road and generally do our best to steer clear of anything that might threaten our safety.

Yet give us a frightening book, a ghost story or a supernatural thriller, and suddenly we're perfectly happy to experience fear from the comfort of our favourite armchair.

Psychologists sometimes describe this as recreational fear. When we know we're physically safe, frightening experiences can become exciting rather than overwhelming. Our bodies may respond with a racing heartbeat or heightened alertness, but another part of our minds understands that we can close the book whenever we choose.

That distinction matters. The danger feels real enough to capture our attention, but not so real that we have to escape it.

Of course, not everyone enjoys being frightened, and even those of us who do have our limits. Some readers prefer the gentle unease of a traditional ghost story, while others relish the intensity of a psychological thriller. The attraction lies partly in finding the level of fear that feels exciting rather than distressing.

For writers, this creates an interesting challenge. How do you make readers feel threatened while ensuring they remain eager to turn the page?

I believe the answer often lies in anticipation rather than confrontation.

A shadow moving across a doorway can be more disturbing than the creature that eventually emerges from it. Footsteps in an empty room can create more tension than a dramatic supernatural confrontation. The reader's imagination begins filling the gaps, often creating something far more frightening than anything the author could describe.

Sometimes, the most terrifying thing in a ghost story is what we never actually see.

Why the unknown frightens us more than the familiar

Human beings like explanations. We want to understand why things happen, what causes them and how we can prevent them from happening again.

The supernatural challenges that desire for certainty.

Imagine waking in the middle of the night to hear someone walking across the landing. You live alone. The house is locked. There should be nobody there.

Your mind immediately begins searching for explanations. Perhaps it's the central heating. Perhaps a neighbour's footsteps are carrying through the walls. Perhaps you're still half asleep.

But what happens when none of those explanations seems convincing?

That is where the supernatural mystery begins.

The most effective ghost stories exploit the uncomfortable space between what we know and what we fear might be possible. They rarely need to establish beyond doubt that ghosts exist. Instead, they invite us to consider the possibility that our understanding of the world might be incomplete.

Consider Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, where the psychological condition of the characters becomes almost inseparable from the strange events surrounding them. Or Susan Hill's The Woman in Black, where an isolated house, a bleak landscape and a mysterious figure create an atmosphere of gathering dread.

Both demonstrate that uncertainty can be a powerful storytelling device.

As a writer, I find this particularly fascinating because the supernatural allows us to challenge a character's most deeply held assumptions. Once someone begins questioning what is real, everything else in their life can become uncertain.

And that uncertainty creates the foundations for a compelling mystery.

When ordinary things become extraordinary

One of the reasons ghost stories can be so effective is that they often begin with something entirely familiar.

A photograph. A child's toy. An old letter. A telephone ringing in the middle of the night.

None of these things are particularly frightening on their own. We encounter them regularly without giving them a second thought. However place an ordinary object in an extraordinary situation, and its meaning can change completely.

Imagine finding an old photograph in which someone appears who could not possibly have been present or discovering a letter written in the handwriting of a person who died many years earlier.

The object itself hasn't changed. What has changed is our understanding of it.

That idea lies at the heart of my supernatural mystery The Last Caller.

Jacob works as a helpline operator, accustomed to answering calls from people who need someone to listen. It is an ordinary responsibility, grounded in human connection and the simple act of offering support.

Then he receives a call that should never have been possible.

A mysterious woman named Veronica draws him into a decades-old investigation involving a devastating house fire, buried family secrets and questions about his own identity.

What begins as an apparently impossible telephone call becomes something far more personal. Jacob isn't simply trying to discover who is calling him. He's trying to understand why the caller knows things about his life that he doesn't know himself.

For me, that is where supernatural fiction becomes particularly interesting. The unexplained event opens the door, but the human mystery encourages us to keep walking through it.

After all, what could be more unsettling than discovering that a stranger knows more about your past than you do?

Ghost stories are often about grief and loss

Although we tend to associate ghost stories with fear, many of them are also deeply emotional.

Think about what a ghost represents. Someone who was once alive. Someone who had relationships, ambitions, regrets and experiences. Someone whose life ended, but whose presence somehow remains.

The idea of a ghost touches upon one of humanity's oldest questions: what happens when we die?

For some people, the possibility of life beyond death offers comfort. For others, it raises unsettling questions about what might remain unfinished. Ghost stories can explore both reactions, sometimes within the same narrative.

They also provide a way of examining grief, memory and the difficulty of letting go.

A haunting might represent an injustice that was never resolved. A mysterious apparition might be connected to a family secret. A voice from the past might be seeking forgiveness, recognition or simply the opportunity to be heard.

In that sense, supernatural fiction often explores experiences that are entirely human, even when the events themselves are impossible.

The emotional weight of a ghost story doesn't necessarily come from the ghost. It comes from understanding why that presence matters to the living.

This is one of the themes I enjoy exploring in my writing. Behind the supernatural mystery, there is often a person struggling with loss, guilt, uncertainty or a truth they would rather avoid.

The ghost may provide the mystery, but the human experience gives it meaning.

Why we love secrets that refuse to stay buried

A good mystery promises that something important has been concealed.

Perhaps a family has protected a terrible secret for generations. Perhaps a disappearance was never properly investigated. Perhaps an apparently ordinary community has built its existence around a lie.

Whatever the circumstances, readers are invited to become investigators.

We examine clues, question motives and search for connections between events. Every revelation offers the possibility of understanding what really happened.

Supernatural mysteries add another dimension because the clues themselves may challenge conventional explanations.

In Whispers in the Fog, I explore this through Lillie, a young woman whose disturbing psychic visions become entangled with a murder investigation on the mist-shrouded Misthaven Island.

Her experiences raise difficult questions. Can she trust what she sees? Will anyone believe her? And what happens when the very thing that might help uncover the truth also makes her a suspect?

The island setting adds another layer to the mystery. Isolation, suspicion and the secrets of a close-knit community create an atmosphere in which the past feels dangerously close to the present.

For me, this combination of supernatural uncertainty and human deception is particularly compelling.

A ghost story might ask whether the dead can return. A mystery asks why something happened.

Bring those questions together, and the possibilities become almost endless.

The power of atmosphere

Ask readers what they remember most vividly about their favourite ghost stories, and many will describe a place.

A deserted mansion. A fog-covered moor. An abandoned school. A lonely stretch of coastline where the sea disappears into the mist.

Setting has an extraordinary ability to influence how we experience fiction.

A house that feels welcoming in daylight can become threatening after dark. A familiar road can seem entirely different when the streetlights fail. A room that once offered comfort can become unsettling when something inexplicable happens inside it.

Writers use these contrasts to create atmosphere, allowing ordinary surroundings to acquire an unfamiliar significance.

I have always been drawn to locations that seem to possess their own histories. Places where the past feels close enough to touch and where silence suggests that something important has been left unsaid.

But atmosphere is about more than darkness, fog and abandoned buildings.

It is about expectation.

The reader senses that something is wrong long before the characters understand what it might be. A detail appears slightly out of place. A conversation ends too abruptly. Someone refuses to answer an apparently innocent question.

Gradually, those small disturbances accumulate until even the most ordinary moment carries an undercurrent of tension.

When that happens, the setting becomes more than a backdrop. It becomes an active part of the story.

Do we really want all the answers?

There is a temptation when writing mysteries to explain everything.

Every clue must have a purpose. Every question should lead towards a revelation. Every secret must eventually be exposed.

And certainly, readers deserve satisfying resolutions to the central mysteries of a story.

But supernatural fiction offers an interesting exception.

Sometimes, a little uncertainty can make an ending more memorable.

If every unexplained event receives a straightforward explanation, the extraordinary may begin to feel ordinary again. The mystery has been solved, but some of its power has disappeared.

That doesn't mean abandoning the reader or introducing confusion for its own sake. It means recognising that there is a difference between resolving a character's story and explaining every aspect of the supernatural world they have encountered.

A character might discover the truth about their family, confront a terrible injustice or finally understand the significance of a mysterious event.

However, does that necessarily mean they must understand everything?

I don't think so.

Some of the most memorable supernatural stories leave us with one final question, a lingering uncertainty that follows us beyond the last page.

Perhaps that's why we sometimes find ourselves thinking about a ghost story years after reading it.

The book may be closed, but the mystery remains.

Perhaps we want to believe

There is another possibility worth considering.

Perhaps our fascination with ghost stories comes partly from wanting to believe that the world contains more than we can explain.

Human beings have told stories about spirits, apparitions and encounters with the dead for thousands of years. These traditions vary enormously between cultures, but they share a fascination with the possibility that existence extends beyond the boundaries of ordinary experience.

Modern science has provided explanations for many phenomena once attributed to supernatural forces. Yet ghost stories remain popular, and people continue to report experiences they find difficult to understand.

That doesn't establish that ghosts exist. It does suggest that our fascination with the unknown is unlikely to disappear.

And perhaps it shouldn't.

Imagination encourages us to ask questions, explore possibilities and consider experiences beyond our own. Fiction gives us the freedom to do those things without requiring us to accept every possibility as fact.

We can enjoy a ghost story without believing in ghosts. We can be frightened by a fictional haunting while knowing that the author created every word.

And we can still glance towards the doorway when the house makes an unexpected noise.

Just in case.

The ghost story is here to stay

The popularity of supernatural fiction suggests that our appetite for the unexplained is far from exhausted.

New generations of writers continue to reinterpret familiar themes, combining traditional hauntings with psychological suspense, crime investigations, family dramas and contemporary anxieties.

The settings change. The characters evolve. The methods of storytelling develop.

But the fundamental questions remain remarkably consistent.

What lies beyond our understanding? Can the past ever truly be buried? What happens when something impossible intrudes upon an ordinary life?

And perhaps most importantly, what would we do if it happened to us?

For me, that is the enduring appeal of supernatural mystery fiction. It allows us to explore fear, loss, guilt, hope and the extraordinary complexity of human behaviour through stories that challenge our understanding of reality.

A good ghost story doesn't simply make us afraid of the dark.

It makes us wonder what might be waiting within it.

Enjoy a good supernatural mystery? Discover my books

If you've ever found yourself drawn to stories about ghosts, unexplained events and secrets that refuse to remain buried, perhaps I can tempt you with something from my own imagination.

My supernatural fiction explores the unsettling space between the ordinary and the extraordinary, where the past refuses to stay silent and even the most familiar things can become deeply disturbing.

Whispers in the Fog

On the mist-shrouded Misthaven Island, Lillie's psychic visions draw her into a disturbing mystery involving murder, suspicion and secrets hidden beneath the surface of an apparently ordinary community.

As danger grows, she must discover whether her extraordinary experiences can help reveal the truth before they destroy her.

GHOSTED

For readers who enjoy shorter supernatural fiction, GHOSTED offers a journey into the unexplained, exploring the unsettling possibility that the world contains more than we can see or understand.

A supernatural mystery short story for anyone who enjoys atmosphere, intrigue and the unexpected.

The Last Caller

Some calls should never be answered. Especially those from the dead.

When helpline operator Jacob receives a mysterious telephone call, he becomes entangled in a decades-old mystery involving a devastating house fire, hidden family connections and a woman whose voice should not be reaching him.

With the help of his friend Raj, Jacob begins uncovering a disturbing history of deception, guilt and betrayal. But as the truth emerges, he discovers that the greatest mystery may concern his own past.

The Last Caller combines supernatural mystery, psychological suspense and dark family secrets in a haunting story about identity, loss and the consequences of long-buried lies.

Explore the books of E.M. Wallis and discover your next supernatural mystery.

What Do You Think?

Have you ever read a ghost story that genuinely frightened you? Perhaps you've experienced something you still cannot explain, or maybe you simply enjoy the thrill of a supernatural mystery from the safety of your favourite reading chair.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Why do you think we love ghost stories?

You can get in touch here: Contact E.M. Wallis

E.M. Wallis

Author of Whispers in the Fog, GHOSTED and The Last Caller

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Top 25 Atmospheric supernatural mysteries: haunting books you won't forget

E.M. Wallis — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

From isolated haunted houses and fog-shrouded landscapes to ghostly encounters and secrets buried for generations, discover 25 supernatural mystery books that will stay with you long after the final page.

There is something irresistible about a good supernatural mystery. Perhaps it is the creeping suspicion that the world is not quite as ordinary as we believe. Perhaps it is the thrill of discovering a secret that someone, somewhere, desperately wanted to keep hidden. Or perhaps we simply enjoy being frightened, provided we can close the book and reassure ourselves that everything is perfectly normal.

Until something goes bump in the night.

I'm E.M. Wallis, a British author of supernatural mysteries including Whispers in the Fog, GHOSTED and The Last Caller. I've always been fascinated by the things we cannot explain, particularly when they collide with the darker aspects of human nature. The secrets people carry, the memories they try to suppress and the possibility that some stories refuse to end simply because the people involved are no longer alive to tell them.

For me, the best supernatural mysteries are not necessarily the ones with the most terrifying ghosts. They are the stories that make us question what we believe, draw us into the lives of their characters and leave us wondering whether the extraordinary might be hiding somewhere within the ordinary.

A creaking floorboard becomes a warning. An abandoned house conceals a terrible history. A voice from the past refuses to remain silent.

I've brought together 25 atmospheric supernatural mysteries that demonstrate the extraordinary range of this genre. Some are established classics. Others offer contemporary interpretations of the supernatural. A few deliberately leave us wondering whether the haunting is real or whether the greatest mysteries lie within the human mind.

These are recommendations from other authors whose work deserves exploring. I've kept my own fiction separate, with a short introduction to my books at the end.

One thing unites them all: their ability to make the ordinary feel extraordinary.

1. The Haunting of Hill House: Shirley Jackson

Few novels have influenced supernatural fiction quite like The Haunting of Hill House. When a small group gathers at an isolated mansion to investigate reports of paranormal activity, the house begins to exert a disturbing influence over its visitors.

Jackson's genius lies in her restraint. The novel rarely needs to explain what is happening because uncertainty itself becomes the source of terror. The house feels like a character, its corridors and rooms creating an atmosphere of growing psychological unease.

Why read it? A masterclass in ambiguous hauntings, psychological tension and the unsettling power of place.

2. The Woman in Black: Susan Hill

A young solicitor travels to a remote English village to settle the affairs of a deceased client. His work takes him to Eel Marsh House, an isolated property surrounded by marshland and accessible by a causeway.

There he encounters a mysterious woman dressed in black, whose presence appears connected to a tragedy the villagers are reluctant to discuss.

Hill uses mist, isolation and silence to extraordinary effect. The result is a traditional English ghost story that proves atmosphere can be more frightening than graphic horror.

Why read it? For its haunting coastal setting, gradual revelations and chilling sense of inevitability.

3. Dark Matter: Michelle Paver

Set during an Arctic expedition in 1937, Dark Matter follows a young man who joins a scientific venture to a remote and increasingly hostile wilderness.

As the polar night approaches and his companions depart, he finds himself facing months of darkness in a place that may not be as deserted as it first appeared.

The Arctic landscape becomes central to the terror. Endless darkness, bitter cold and isolation combine with the suggestion of an unseen presence.

Why read it? One of the most effective examples of how isolation and landscape can transform a ghost story.

4. The Silent Companions: Laura Purcell

When a young widow arrives at her late husband's country estate, she discovers an unsettling collection of painted wooden figures known as silent companions.

The figures appear almost lifelike, and their presence becomes increasingly disturbing as the history of the house begins to emerge.

Purcell blends Victorian Gothic fiction with psychological uncertainty, creating an atmosphere in which even an apparently harmless object becomes threatening.

Why read it? For its sinister historical setting, disturbing imagery and expertly sustained unease.

5. The Little Stranger: Sarah Waters

In post-war Warwickshire, a doctor becomes involved with the inhabitants of Hundreds Hall, a once-grand country house now falling into decline.

As strange incidents begin to occur, the family's already fragile circumstances deteriorate. But is the house haunted, or are its occupants being destroyed by something more human?

Waters combines social change, family tension and Gothic suspense in a story that refuses to offer easy answers.

Why read it? For its psychological depth, decaying country-house atmosphere and unsettling ambiguity.

6. The Sun Down Motel: Simone St. James

A young woman investigating her aunt's disappearance takes a job at the same roadside motel where her relative worked decades earlier.

The motel has changed remarkably little. Neither, it seems, have the strange occurrences associated with it.

Moving between two timelines, the novel combines a missing-person investigation with paranormal activity and a growing sense of danger.

Why read it? An excellent choice for readers who enjoy traditional crime mysteries with a supernatural dimension.

7. The Broken Girls: Simone St. James

Idlewild Hall was once a boarding school for troubled girls. Years after its closure, the building still carries rumours of a haunting and memories of a student's mysterious disappearance.

When a journalist begins investigating the school's history, she uncovers connections between past tragedies and more recent events.

The dual timelines allow the mystery to develop gradually, while the abandoned school provides an atmospheric setting.

Why read it? For its compelling blend of historical secrets, investigative suspense and ghostly encounters.

8. The Turn of the Screw: Henry James

A governess arrives at a remote country estate to care for two children. Before long, she becomes convinced that sinister figures are watching them.

But are these apparitions genuine, or is the governess interpreting ordinary events through an increasingly troubled imagination?

James creates uncertainty that has fascinated readers for generations. Every interpretation raises further questions.

Why read it? A landmark psychological ghost story that demonstrates the power of an unreliable perspective.

9. The Thirteenth Tale: Diane Setterfield

A reclusive novelist invites a young biographer to hear the truth about her extraordinary past.

What follows is a story of family secrets, troubled relationships, a mysterious country house and events that seem to resist explanation.

Although more Gothic family mystery than conventional ghost story, The Thirteenth Tale belongs on this list because of its extraordinary atmosphere and fascination with the stories people conceal.

Why read it? For its intricate storytelling, Gothic setting and slowly unfolding family mysteries.

10. The Hacienda: Isabel Cañas

Set in Mexico after the War of Independence, The Hacienda follows a young woman whose marriage offers the promise of security and a new beginning.

Her husband's remote estate, however, conceals a threatening presence, and the household seems determined to prevent her from discovering the truth.

Cañas combines Gothic suspense with historical and cultural detail, producing a haunted-house story with a distinctive identity.

Why read it? For its richly realised setting, escalating supernatural danger and buried secrets.

11. Mexican Gothic: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

When a young woman receives a disturbing letter from her cousin, she travels to an isolated English-style mansion in the Mexican countryside.

The house is oppressive, its inhabitants secretive and its atmosphere increasingly nightmarish.

Moreno-Garcia combines Gothic conventions with unsettling biological and supernatural elements, gradually revealing the sinister forces beneath the mansion's elegant exterior.

Why read it? For its striking imagery, claustrophobic atmosphere and imaginative approach to Gothic horror.

12. The Invited: Jennifer McMahon

A couple leave city life behind to build a house in rural Vermont, hoping to create their ideal home.

But the land has a disturbing history, and their dream project becomes entangled with local legends and unresolved events.

McMahon turns the familiar haunted-house premise on its head by exploring what happens when people build a new home upon a troubled past.

Why read it? For its unusual premise, eerie rural atmosphere and satisfying mystery.

13. The Haunting of Maddy Clare: Simone St. James

In 1920s England, a young woman accepts work assisting two men investigating a reported haunting.

Their assignment leads them to a remote property where a violent spirit appears to be connected to a tragic history.

As the investigation develops, the characters must uncover the truth behind the haunting while confronting dangers of their own.

Why read it? For its combination of historical mystery, paranormal investigation and emotional storytelling.

14. The Family Plot: Cherie Priest

When a salvage company begins dismantling an old house, its workers discover that the property holds more than valuable architectural materials.

Strange occurrences soon suggest that the building's history has not been laid to rest.

Priest gives the haunted-house story an engaging practical dimension: the characters are there to work, not to investigate ghosts, making their discoveries particularly unsettling.

Why read it? For its unusual setting, ghostly mystery and steadily increasing tension.

15. Home Before Dark: Riley Sager

A woman inherits the house her family fled when she was a child, a property made notorious by her father's bestselling account of its haunting.

Determined to discover what really happened, she returns to a place whose reputation has overshadowed her life.

Sager combines conflicting accounts, family secrets and unsettling incidents in a thriller that continually challenges the reader's assumptions.

Why read it? For its twists, unreliable family history and questions about whether a haunting can be believed.

16. The Book of Cold Cases: Simone St. James

A true-crime blogger secures an interview with a woman once accused of two murders.

The woman's imposing home and troubling past soon become central to an investigation that moves beyond ordinary crime reporting.

As the blogger searches for answers, the possibility of supernatural involvement complicates an already disturbing mystery.

Why read it? For its cold-case investigation, atmospheric setting and blend of crime fiction with paranormal suspense.

17. Wakenhyrst: Michelle Paver

In Edwardian Suffolk, a young woman grows up in an isolated manor house beside the mysterious Fens.

Her father's obsession with a medieval painting becomes increasingly disturbing, while the surrounding landscape seems to conceal ancient fears.

Paver's attention to historical detail and the natural environment creates an atmosphere in which superstition, repression and psychological unease become inseparable.

Why read it? For its haunting Fenland setting, Gothic family tensions and carefully developed dread.

18. Thin Air: Michelle Paver

During a 1935 mountaineering expedition in the Himalayas, a group of climbers attempts to conquer a formidable peak.

But the mountain carries a troubling history, and as conditions deteriorate, the expedition encounters something that cannot easily be explained.

Paver makes the altitude, isolation and physical dangers of climbing central to the supernatural mystery.

Why read it? For its bleak mountain atmosphere, mounting dread and sense of vulnerability.

19. The Essex Serpent: Sarah Perry

In Victorian Essex, rumours circulate that a legendary creature has returned to the marshes.

A scientifically minded widow becomes fascinated by the reports, while the local community struggles to reconcile superstition, faith and rational explanation.

This is not a conventional ghost story. Its supernatural possibilities remain entwined with human belief, desire and fear.

Why read it? For its evocative landscape, literary storytelling and exploration of the boundary between folklore and reality.

20. The Death of Jane Lawrence: Caitlin Starling

A practical young woman enters a marriage of convenience with a doctor, only to discover that his remote ancestral home conceals disturbing secrets.

Unexplained events, strange rules and the suggestion of occult forces gradually undermine her understanding of the world.

Starling combines Gothic romance, psychological horror and supernatural mystery in a story that becomes increasingly unpredictable.

Why read it? For its unsettling mansion, occult intrigue and darkly imaginative atmosphere.

21. The Nesting: C. J. Cooke

A young woman accepts a position caring for children in a remote Norwegian house built above a fjord.

The family's history is troubled, the surrounding landscape feels threatening and local folklore suggests that unseen forces may be at work.

Cooke combines emotional tension with Nordic mythology and the claustrophobia of an isolated home.

Why read it? For its dramatic Scandinavian setting, haunting folklore and psychological suspense.

22. The Whispering House: Elizabeth Brooks

A young woman visits an old country house and becomes increasingly fascinated by its history, its inhabitants and a mysterious portrait.

What begins as curiosity develops into an unsettling investigation of family secrets and troubling events.

The novel uses classic Gothic elements to explore obsession, vulnerability and the dangerous attraction of places that seem to hold answers.

Why read it? For its atmospheric country-house setting and slow-burning mystery.

23. The Poison Thread: Laura Purcell

In Victorian England, a young woman becomes fascinated by a seamstress imprisoned after a series of suspicious deaths.

The prisoner claims that her needlework possesses a sinister power, raising questions about whether the explanation lies in the supernatural or in human cruelty.

Purcell explores class, injustice and belief through a dark and intricately constructed Gothic mystery.

Why read it? For its unusual supernatural premise, Victorian atmosphere and morally complex characters.

24. The Last House on Needless Street: Catriona Ward

At the end of an ordinary street stands a house associated with unsettling rumours and a long-standing mystery.

Its inhabitants seem to live according to their own peculiar rules, while the past exerts an increasingly powerful influence over the present.

Ward creates a deeply unsettling psychological mystery in which appearances are deceptive and the reader must continually reconsider what is happening.

Why read it? For its ingenious structure, disturbing atmosphere and extraordinary twists.

25. Dracula: Bram Stoker

No exploration of atmospheric supernatural mysteries would be complete without Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Told through letters, journals and other documents, the novel follows a group of people attempting to understand and confront a terrifying supernatural threat.

From the remote mountains of Transylvania to the streets of Victorian England, Stoker creates a world in which rational investigation meets ancient evil.

Why read it? For its enduring Gothic atmosphere, investigative structure and enormous influence on supernatural fiction.

What Makes an Atmospheric Supernatural Mystery So Compelling?

Looking across these 25 books, several common ingredients emerge.

Setting matters. Whether the story unfolds in a lonely Arctic outpost, a decaying country house or a forgotten roadside motel, the environment becomes an essential part of the mystery. The most effective settings are not merely backgrounds. They influence the characters, shape the danger and create the impression that something is waiting just beyond our understanding.

Secrets drive the story. Many supernatural mysteries begin with an event that nobody can explain. Yet beneath the haunting lies a more recognisable human question. Who was responsible? What happened here? Why has the truth been concealed? The supernatural becomes a means of uncovering the past rather than simply frightening the reader.

Uncertainty is powerful. Some of the most memorable books on this list never fully resolve whether their events are paranormal or psychological. They invite us to question the reliability of memory, the motives of characters and the explanations we create for things we cannot understand.

Emotion gives the mystery meaning. A ghost without a history may frighten us briefly. A ghost connected to grief, injustice, guilt or unfinished business can remain in our imagination for years.

Perhaps that is why supernatural mysteries continue to fascinate readers. Beneath the apparitions and unexplained events, they often explore something deeply human: our fear that the past is never entirely gone.

Enjoy These Supernatural Mysteries? Discover My Books

If you've enjoyed exploring these 25 supernatural mysteries, perhaps I can tempt you with a few stories of my own.

My fiction explores the unsettling space between the ordinary and the unexplained, where secrets refuse to remain buried and the past has a habit of reaching into the present.

Whispers in the Fog

Some calls should never be answered. Especially those from the dead.

When helpline operator Jacob answers a mysterious late-night telephone call, he becomes entangled in a decades-old mystery involving a devastating house fire, buried family secrets and a woman whose voice should not be reaching him.

As the calls continue, Jacob and his friend Raj begin uncovering a disturbing history of deception, guilt and betrayal. But every discovery raises another question, and the closer Jacob gets to the truth, the more his understanding of his own past begins to unravel.

The Last Caller combines supernatural mystery, psychological suspense and dark family secrets in a haunting story about identity, loss and the consequences of long-buried lies.

A Final Word

Whether you prefer traditional ghost stories, Gothic mysteries or contemporary supernatural thrillers, I hope you've discovered something on this list that makes you want to turn off the television, settle into your favourite chair and lose yourself in a good book.

And if you decide to explore one of my stories, thank you. As an independent author, knowing that someone has chosen to spend their time in a world I've created means a great deal.

Happy reading.

E.M. Wallis

Author of Whispers in the Fog, GHOSTED and The Last Caller

What Would Make Your Top 25?

Have I included your favourite supernatural mystery? Perhaps there's a lesser-known ghost story you think deserves a place alongside the classics.

I'd love to hear your recommendations. After all, discovering a wonderful book is one of life's great pleasures, and the best recommendations often come from fellow readers.

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Welcome to my author website

E.M. Wallis — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Writing can be a solitary business, so it’s good to have somewhere to share it with you.

Here you can explore my books, from the supernatural mystery of The Last Caller to the deeply personal poems in Awaken the Warrior Inside.

I’ll use this space to share news, glimpses behind the stories and occasional reflections on writing.

Thank you for reading and being part of the journey.

E.M. Wallis

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E.M. Wallis | Updates

Five things that make a supernatural mystery unforgettable

Behind the Fog: Creating the World of Misthaven Island

When the impossible becomes personal: Creating believable characters in supernatural fiction

When ordinary places become extraordinary: The importance of setting in supernatural fiction

Top 10 supernatural thriller books worth reading

The psychology of fear: Why the unseen frightens us most

GHOSTED: The story behind my supernatural mystery

Top 10 ghost stories that will keep you awake this Halloween

From Journalism to Fiction: My Journey as a Storyteller

Why do we love ghost stories? The psychology behind our fascination with the supernatural

Top 25 Atmospheric supernatural mysteries: haunting books you won't forget

Welcome to my author website